Another Chance
by kiohates
Summary: In which Tylendel lives... and so does Stefen? T/V/S. Warnings by the chapter.
1. Chapter One

Warnings?

Even though it's probably clear from the first paragraph, this story contains a **THREESOME**. In case no one likes that. It is however, _**not**_ **explicit**. Or, in the case that someone _does_ like that, please do let me know. (coughs politely). Oh, and I apologize for never thanking (or replying to) people that review. And that's pretty much it. ONWARDS.

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He watched them almost obsessively. It was Vanyel he dreamed of mostly, but sometimes it'd be Tylendel. He was almost embarrassed to think of those dreams in which strong arms encircled him and- well, never mind.

It was only a week ago that he'd spent an evening in Vanyel's quarters after having played his fingers bloody for the King. He was there again, and this time drunk as hell and trying very hard not to show it. Somehow, they'd decided that Stefen would be best off staying the night. Tylendel was, for now, out on circuit and due back soon.

Vanyel himself had just returned from Rethwellan with a treaty, so it came as no surprise that he wanted little other than sleep. Even knowing this, it was hard for Stefen not to feel disappointed lying (in his bed!) beside him unable to, well, _do_ anything. He soon fell into an uneasy sleep, and when he awoke late the next morning, Vanyel was gone.

But the one whose entrance had awoken him was still there, and was staring at him curiously.

"H—herald Tylendel!" He flushed a dark red. "um… good morning" What was wrong with him? Stuttering and then flushing like a schoolgirl. The herald, for his part, remained utterly composed, completely unbothered. Damn him.

"Good morning." Tylendel chuckled warmly. "…It's been a long while since I've found such a pretty stranger in my bed" His quiet and yet somehow powerful tenor sent shivers down Stef's spine. The Bard-to-be's face turned redder as he berated himself for acting so childishly in front of the man he half-considered to be his rival, albeit an unbeatable one, in the contest for Vanyel's affections. He thought of this while valiantly trying to ignore the thought that he was nevertheless still succumbing to 'Lendel's undeniable charm. And as easily as the herald played the situation down, it must be impossible that he wasn't bothered by it. After all, he had just come home to find a stranger in his lifebonded's _bed_, with all the indications that if he'd come any earlier, he might've found them there _together_.

"Uh, I- I'm very sorry. I- you're not angry? I'll leave right away…" offered a very flustered Stefen. What was he _saying_?! Even in such a compromising position, it wasn't like he'd even _done_ anything. Yet. He fumed internally at the messy emotions the older herald seemed to provoke, and vowed to try harder than ever to get closer to Vanyel—although maybe after escaping his current situation.

"And what did you say your name was?" asked the blond with a smile. Stefen gave a frustrated groan as he pulled his boot on the wrong foot, looking up to answer.

"It's just Stefen"

"Bardic trainee Stefen, then… The one with the Wild Talent, I assume?"

"Ah, yes, that's me. D-did Vanyel tell you about me?"

"He did."

"Oh." He flushed with pleasure, and didn't notice at all when Tylendel took the opportunity to wander ever closer.

"Your tunic…" He held it out.

"Oh…_oh_" The bare-chested teen seemed to finally become aware of his state of undress. He felt his face grow ever hotter, hyperaware of their proximity now. _Close, he's so close!_ His traitorous mind whispered as a flash from a dream came to him, superimposed upon reality. Strong arms and golden curls and a quiet tenor voice… His face must've been terribly red, his heart beating out a shameful rhythm. And couldn't Heralds sense things like that? He fled the room, pulling his tunic over his head as he raced out the door, passing Vanyel as he went, not wanting to so much as stop for pleasantries in his current state of mind.

"Heyla, ashke"

"Van! You're back"

"I am. Now tell me, was that Stefen I saw running down the hall looking for all the world like he was being chased by a horde of Karsites…?"

"Well, I might've… teased him a bit" He grinned shyly, causing Vanyel to look up in surprise. This mood was rare in the Herald, no—not rare, in fact all but nonexistent. Ever since Staven's death and the disastrous events that followed, over a decade and a half ago, some things- most things- about them had been changed irrevocably.

* * *

The nights were always the worst. Although with the help of Starwind and Moondance he had come to some semblance of peace and stability, some illusion of being whole. But he could see the cracks forming in the darkest of nights. He knew that he was broken. No longer did Tylendel appear warm and beckoning in his dreams. His Tylendel was still and bleeding, calling him into a world of torment.

It had been just over two years since Vanyel had left Haven, and three months since he'd last seen his aunt, Savil. Her arrival in the vale was, for him, heralded by a bout of dizziness that alerted him to powerful Gate magics being wrought too close for comfort.

He made his way to Starwind's ekele, anticipating that she would stop there first. Instead, he found her picking her way up the path that led to his dwelling.

"Aunt?"

"Oh, heyla, Van" the light greeting she offered belied tension in the lines of her body.

"What brings you back here so soon? Is something wrong?"

_:'Fandes? What do you know about this?:_

_:Nothing yet, kechara. Your aunt will tell you.: _Vanyel frowned at this, a feeling of unease settling itself in the pit of his stomach. His aunt replied,

"No, nothing's _wrong_. But I'm here to- to deliver a message of sorts." She looked at him uncertainly. He nodded, motioning for her to continue.

"How do you feel about returning to Haven?" She asked in the same cautious tone. He could Feel her trying to gauge his reaction, but even if she weren't terrible with empathy, Vanyel knew that he had grown even harder to read in the past two years, his true emotions now rarely surfacing.

"The Heraldic Circle has requested your presence. There have been some new- developments- ah, in Karse, especially… So I recommended you to be sent there. They'd like to test your power. You'll be presented to the Queen as well as the entire Circle. None of them have seen you since- …since you came here." She finished lamely. She gathered herself up and started in a brisk voice. "I've left the Gate open, if you think you'll be well enough travelling that way, we can leave right away."

"Yes, Aunt. I'll be fine" She did a double take.

"Are you sure?" Clearly she expected him to decline.

"Yes, I'll be fine. Just a reaction-headache." Then, mentally.

_:Yfandes, meet me at the Gate?:_

_:In five minutes: _She mindsent. _:It'll be safer if you ride:_

"I'll get my things" He murmured absently, ignoring his aunt's response, _don't take all day about it!_, in favor of concentrating on an image of his room, and the positions of his ready packs. A moment later he held them in his hands.

"You Fetched them?" asked Savil incredulously. It was basic knowledge that it was always better to conserve power, rather than using it foolishly on things that could be done the regular way. Not to mention that Fetching was not even close to Vanyel's most powerful Gift and thus took that much more effort to control. Vanyel shrugged.

"It takes less power than it does for you to keep that Gate open, yeah?" Still, his Aunt hesitated.

"and… that's everything?"

"I was patrolling our northern border and got back just yesterday. Everything I own is in these packs now. The vain little peacock you remember doesn't exist here any longer."

It occurred to him as they walked that he'd said "our border" so casually, meaning, of course, the _Tayledras'_ border. He wondered if his aunt realized what he meant. It didn't seem so strange to him anymore that he should see this place as his, and yet here he was, leaving it. _Ever the outsider…_he thought to himself somewhat melodramatically, blocking out Yfandes and her inescapable carping commentary should she hear him whining.

When they arrived at the Gate, Vanyel saw Yfandes waiting, already in full tack. Not for the first time, he wondered whether she had known about this beforehand. With her were Starwind and Moondance. He embraced them both and spoke their traditional farewell, and they responded in kind. Standing so close to the Gate was making his head ache and there was still worse to come. He climbed into Yfandes' saddle and made sure to secure the leg straps. He didn't think he would faint, but it made him feel better against the impending feeling of vertigo.

Once through the Gate, Savil noted that the Circle had already convened.

"They're leaving now" she remarked "Come along, Vanyel, we're headed that way"

He nodded, not really paying attention, as he dismounted the saddle. Then, minding the pounding in his head, he began slowly to lower all of his personal shields.

"Van? What are you doing?" asked Savil, looking at him strangely. Her Sight fixed on his little ritual.

"With shields up, you are hidden from enemies, but they are sometimes also hidden from you." He responded. "It's something I learned back h—er, up north. I'm just looking around now"

"I see" She said doubtfully, dismissing it as she spotted a familiar herald walking towards them. "Ah, Tantras"

_:he's here: _Sensing the direction of his thoughts, Savil turned very pale.

"Vanyel, wait. I don't think… _Vanyel_"

_:here. HE'S HERE.: _At this, several mindspeakers turned to look at them. Vanyel's eyes had glazed over and he slowly turned, as if looking for something, the words "he's here" a litany in the minds of everyone near him. Finally he stopped, facing the Healer's Collegium.

"Tantras! Tantras, stop him!" yelled Savil a moment too late as Vanyel began to run towards the Collegium. The two older Heralds were forced to give chase, not noticing as they did that Yfandes coolly chose not to follow.

_:he's here he's here he's here:_

Words repeating, ceasing to have meaning.

_:here he's here he's here here here here:_

Crashing through the building, heedless of Healers and patients alike.

_:here, here, HERE, _TYLENDEL_:_

Out the door and into the gardens he ran, his mental "voice" projecting to its limit.

_:Tylendel, Tylendel, TYLENDEL, please answer me!: _he cried desperately, still searching.

Tantras winced. "Tylendel?"

Savil wheezed what was probably a sigh and began to slow down. "Yes. He's found him. I can hardly imagine how. I believe he is now more powerful than even the Queen's Own. And blast it- how is he moving so fast?"

"Found…? He's- It looks like he's Fetching himself!" He said, astonished. "He's Fetching himself as he runs! Incredible…"

_:Tylendel, why won't you answer?: _and, finally, out loud, with rising hysteria "Tylendel, _WHY CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?"_

There was only the clatter of a metal hitting the stone path in answer. He made one last turn around a hedge and finally came in view of him, his lifebonded Tylendel, presumed dead until this moment, frozen in place, kneeling in a flowerbed. His open-mouthed expression would have been comical were it not for his dismal appearance. Two years in near isolation had not been kind to him. His tunic was of a rough cloth, and though Vanyel didn't yet know it, the color of long term patients in the Healer's Collegium. His blond hair was short and lifeless, his brown eyes dark, hollow. But he was _alive_. Tylendel was _alive_. Vanyel's face was wet by a fresh wave of tears that ran down tracks on his face he hadn't realized were already there.

"Vanyel" escaped the quiet tenor's voice, creaky with disuse. He fell to his knees beside his estranged lover, catching and holding the errant hand still in the act of reaching for a fallen trowel.

"I'm here, 'Lendel. I'm here now."

"They told me you died." The blond whispered in an unsteady voice. "They told me…They told me _I_ killed you" His voice rising sharply in pitch. "I can't Feel you, Vanyel, I can't Feel anything. Vanyel, they told me you were dead" He grabbed him tightly, as if to assure himself that Vanyel was really there. "I'm sorry, Vanyel, please, I'm sorry. They told me… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" They were wracked with sobs that seemed to echo off one another. Vanyel could feel waves of self-loathing and remorse pouring off his lover, who to his Empathy appeared simply as a maelstrom of negative emotion.

They were still sitting there, in the same position when a young girl--a healer trainee by her tunic, came by with a pot of tea. She knew Tylendel hated to be near people, and being of an intelligent sort, she quickly realized there was only one person that Herald could be—Tylendel's estranged lifebonded. The tea fell to the floor, the porcelain pot breaking into thousands of shards. Neither boy moved. Ignoring the likely irreparable crockery for now, the trainee ran for the one person she was certain would know what to do—Herald Savil.


	2. Chapter Two

He tried not to run the whole way there, but he nevertheless arrived outside the Herald's quarters flushed and breathless. He paused outside the door, somewhere in his mind aware that he might look too desperate if he showed up in such a disheveled state, and nervously tried to smooth out his tunic. It seemed like a lifetime since the last time he'd been alone with Vanyel. Oh, they'd meet every so often, especially in court, now that his status as the King's bard was firmly established, but…Tylendel. He was always there. No doubt he sensed Stefen's less than pure intentions, or perhaps had caught wind of his reputation. Or maybe, possibly, it was… something else. He shifted in place uncomfortably. What if Tylendel was there as well? They were his rooms, too, after all. He remembered being on the receiving end of those long unreadable stares in court. He could practically feel the weight of those dark brown eyes all the time now. Ever since he had learned to separate his awareness in the trance state while playing, the first thing he'd noticed was that prickling feeling of knowing that he was being watched. That feeling hadn't really left since then. He sighed. No use in worrying about it now, right?

"Why, Bard Stefen, there you are. I was beginning to think you were planning on spending all day in the corridor."

"Ty—! I mean, Herald Tylendel." exclaimed Stefen, quickly trying to hide his dismay— er, surprise. "Where's Vanyel?"

"There's no need for such formality between… friends, is there?" Tylendel's eyes narrowed. "You don't use Van's title"

He took a step closer, as Stefen almost simultaneously took one back.

"I… that is… where _is_ he? He called me here, didn't—"

"Oh, no, Van's out. _I_ called you." interrupted Tylendel. Stefen swallowed thickly.

"And, ah… why…would that… be?" His breaths grew shorter as the distance between them closed. Vanyel's desk was at his back. As uneasy as he was, he couldn't help but admire the older herald's striking looks. Panic filled him at their closeness even as he became aware of alien feelings of trust and a near morbid kind of curiosity, when a completely awful and utterly unwelcome realization came to him- he liked this. He liked this, where he was—what he was doing— _and who he was with… _prompted his rebellious mind. The feeling of _rightness_ washed over him and just as quickly disappeared, leaving him feeling more than a little confused. He shook his head. All he knew was that this wasn't a good idea. This definitely was not a good idea. Stefen put out his hand to keep space between them, and found himself rudely shoved back. Tylendel captured one hand in his own, and with his other hand cupped the young bard's cheek, turning his flushed face up. It was a gentle, chaste kiss they shared, one like Stefen—despite his rather extensive experience—had never before known.

"No…" escaped the quiet moan, as he gave into the soft pressures he felt from the Herald, and pressed up against him, allowing himself to be held. A torrent of foreign emotions rushed through him, unclear images flickered past his vision.

"_Yes…_"It was true. All this time watching him had finally paid off. He knew for sure now of the young bard's significance. He rejoiced in this knowledge, absentmindedly letting the shields he'd been gripping so tightly seconds before waver dangerously.

Something was happening. It no longer made his mind scream "foreign!"at him, as if it had been accepted at some deep significant level, but this did little to comfort him, as he still remained very much in the dark. He slowly became aware that that 'something' was going wrong. Stefen tried to push away the part of him that demanded to know what was going on, everything, and _right now_, to instead focus on what he _could_ feel. The impression he got was of something growing too fast and too deep, encouraged by strength from a source he knew shouldn't have interfered. Could this be Tylendel's doing?

"'L- Lendel, no" gasped Stefen, the nickname he'd heard so much slipping out at its own accord in his distress. Tylendel, still preoccupied by thoughts of his newly proven theory, was for the moment unaware of Stefen's rising anxiety. He was finally brought out of his reverie at Stefen's insistence.

"'Lendel, 'Lendel, please! What is this- what are you doing?" his cries grew in urgency as he Felt something else for the first time- a sense- like his Gifts, flare into life.

"Hush, kechara, rest now. Don't test it."

"Test what? I don't understand!" He struggled against Tylendel's powerful grip, not so much physically now as mentally, and tried to stave off a feeling of great lethargy. "'Lendel, please make it stop…" Then, not comprehending Tylendel's warning not to test the boundaries of his new, ill begotten Gift, he tried _reaching_… and drew back, stunned and horrified, as a hugely powerful and crushingly angrypresence, the only one he could sense besides Tylendel, took note of him and then looked at them both hard.

"Stefen!" Tylendel reprimanded softly "kechara, what did I just say?" The bard groaned piteously, a sudden reaction-headache threatening to overwhelm his senses.

"t-too much…it's too much" Tylendel sighed. _At least _he_ didn't-_

_:_TYLENDEL._ : _

_Sketi. Never mind. _A mental voice powerful enough, it seemed, to shake the very foundation of Haven reverberated through their mindlink. Stefen clapped his hands over his ears, visibly wilting from the strain of maintaining the connection. A quiet sob escaped him.

"…'Lendel"

"Yes, kechara, that's enough" whispered Tylendel, gathering up the much smaller boy in his arms like a rag doll. Smaller—and younger, too, half Tylendel's own age, if he remembered Vanyel's rants about him correctly. But right now, well, that didn't seem like so much of a problem. Or like the biggest one, anyway.

* * *

_:_TYLENDEL. _:_

The distance between them was relatively short— just a few buildings— so Vanyel was well aware of the strength his "voice" would hold. Something was wrong. He knew the feeling of Tylendel's flare-ups better than he knew himself. And although this one felt suspiciously different from all the others, he wasn't taking any chances. Not anymore.

Powerful pulses of energy pounded across their bond, visible only to his Sight. He didn't bother to excuse himself as he sprinted out the back of the Audience Chamber, Fetching himself as he was wont to do in these situations. And although it was anathema to speak about, everyone _knew_ where he was going, and why.

Tylendel was relapsing.

* * *

It'd been hours before he finally decided to leave Tylendel's side with only a kiss to the temple and a promise to return. He would've stayed with him, but he had to know why this had happened—why they had been deliberately separated, everything.

Tylendel refused to go with him. He'd said that it was his punishment, to stay with the Healers and not to leave. Then he mumbled something about Heralds that Vanyel couldn't catch and fell silent. After that, he wouldn't speak at all.

Eventually, he found Savil, not in her quarters (which had been moved, apparently), or the gardens, or the Court (though to be fair, he only gave a cursory look in between fleeing his former acquaintances among the courtiers). No, he found her in the room where the Circle met. With the entire Circle waiting for him. His headache returned with a vengeance.

It was disconcerting, to say the least, having every eye on him. He felt like the accused of a crime.

_:Yfandes, couldn't you have warned me?: _He asked, trying and failing to keep the whiny edge out of his voice.

_:You didn't ask: _she sniffed_ :don't stand there all day, now. You had things to ask, yes?: _

"Vanyel, this is Queen Elspeth. Elspeth, I'd like to introduce my nephew, Herald-mage Vanyel Ashkevron." Vanyel mumbled something that may or may not have been the polite response and bowed, before turning fully to his Aunt and demanding so that all could hear—

"Why did you keep us apart? What happened to him? He said—he said he couldn't Feel me" a tinge of fear touching his words "That shouldn't be possible. That shouldn't ever happen." He shuddered, and paused a moment to try and regain his composure. "He couldn't hear me, no matter how hard I tried—"

"Yes, yes, and I think I'm correct in saying that everyone in the _Palace_ is well aware of your efforts." interrupted a Herald, the name escaping him. _Jaysen_, supplied Yfandes. "As for your question, _Herald_ Vanyel, you were separated for your own good—" The snide tone of the other herald's words and most of his meaning being lost on Vanyel, who under the surreal conditions was somewhat beyond reasoning.

"Our own good?" asked Vanyel incredulously, his voice sounding shrill even to himself. "Have you _seen_ him?"

"Yes, your good, and the rest of Haven's population while we're at it," snapped the Herald impatiently. "You were both unstable and dangerously dependent on each other—"

"You think we were too dependent? _Too dependent? _We're _lifebonded_! Do you, by any chance, have a lifebonded? No, let me answer that—you do not! You have no idea what it's like. You can't do that—_you can't separate people like that_!" snarled Vanyel, enraged.

"We can, and we will, when one is a mentally unstable murderer, and the other his accomplice, one strong enough to shake the foundations of the Palace with the power of his unconscious, half-drugged, untrained mind alone, all because somewhere, someone had a thought that might've offended him!"

"You told him _he killed me_. You made him believe that like nothing else. What else have you told him? What more have you done to him? You forget, Herald Jaysen, who it is you're insulting. His accomplice, am I? I've no such restraints as the last time any of you saw me, though I wouldn't need any of my full power to beat down the likes of you." His hand flew to his hip, where, sadly, he felt the absence of his sword. His aunt Savil recognized the gesture all too well, however.

"Vanyel!" she screeched. But he hardly heard her, as suddenly everything went out of focus and he was forced to his knees by a mental pressure he never thought he would feel again. _Tylendel… _

_:What a mess…: _

No one was quite sure who had projected it first, but it was certainly the thought on all of their minds. Or it was, at least until the first of the Mindspeakers began to hear the news from their Companions. The magical ban placed on Tylendel's mage-presence had been lifted. And Vanyel, having recovered from the shock of "seeing" his lover reappear to his mage senses, continued to demand an explanation.

In the aftermath of that fateful Sovvan night, more than just the decision to have the two powerful lifebonded separated had passed. Tylendel, though technically a murderer, had never gone on trial. There had never been a precedent for his situation, and because of his clearly unstable health, physically, mentally and otherwise, he became a special case. The official decision was that because he had not been in proper control of his actions after the death of his twin, and had only held out as long as he did because of his dependence on his bonded, Vanyel, he wasn't to be tried normally. The real problem then had been their dangerous dependence. They were liabilities, though some with farther reaching priorities saw them as powerful future assets in an unending war.

So Vanyel, on the verge of death, and in need of greater help then the overburdened Healers of the Collegium could provide, had to be kept away. They determined to have him stay with their _Tayledras_ allies for as long as necessary. They were not foolish enough to believe that a lifebond could be broken or dulled by mere distance, and devised a way to hide Tylendel from the senses of any mage. His Gifts, too, even augmented as they were by the wild force of a Gate cut loose, were within their power to block. That, they decided, was punishment enough. Besides, after months spent nearly catatonic with Healers and Mindhealers alike, there were no indications that he would ever manage so much as regaining his mind. Then there were the Companions. Collectively, in a surge of magic ancient and unknown, they had sealed Tylendel's control of magic so deeply, he was insensible to any use of it, and in turn could not be sensed, even by his bonded. Or so the theory went, for afterwards no Companion could say how it was done.

It seemed that Vanyel had in fact been able to sense the life of his bonded once within the Palace walls that day, but that hadn't anything to do with why they released him, they said. They only knew it was time to do so, they said. And they knew it the way Heralds knew to bring back Vanyel, and to allow Tylendel a place as a Palace servant, as no one else would have the damaged young man, they said and rather snidely too, tired of being questioned by their relentless Chosen.

And Companions always were notoriously closemouthed about their particular brand of magic.


	3. Chapter Three

When Vanyel swept into the room, Stefen would have liked to say he did so with some preternatural grace or beauty or something like that. But he didn't. Vanyel, to him, of course, would remain the pinnacle of attractiveness, but ignoring that, he looked upset, harried and somewhat hung over. Then again, what did he know? He watched resignedly as the world shifted and slid out of focus, not solely because Tylendel chose that moment to deposit him on the bed, where he remained, too disoriented and, suddenly, too drained to move, but mostly because of this creeping feeling of… _resentment_, a horrible feeling of bitter resentment that was growing over everything else he felt— regret, sadness, and love. Was that all he ever felt? he wondered sadly.

No— _no_, it wasn't! Where did _that_ come from? Where was any of this coming from? This was definitely not what he'd expected when he'd gotten up this morning, eager for an afternoon with the lovely Vanyel… He groaned, hoping to any god who might listen that it was still audible.

_Make it stop, _he begged, _just make it_ stop.

Vanyel opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Tylendel before he could get as much as a word out.

"Shield! Vanyel, shield yourself _right now_" hissed Tylendel.

"What? No, forget that- what are you _doing_? And—and why is Stefen here?" His attention was drawn to the Bard, suddenly and dangerously. He reached out to touch him, to try and understand what suddenly seemed so different about him. No doubt it had something to do with the strange energy he still saw being emitted from the other Herald. Stranger still was that Stefen… _felt_ like Tylendel. He couldn't think to explain any better, except that he'd felt almost the same way when he'd first met the Bard through Medren, but that now the feeling was much stronger. What in the name of Haven had Tylendel done to him?

"Vanyel!" Tylendel's outraged voice broke him out of his thoughts. "What the _hell_ are you doing? I said _shield_, _block, _something, anything! not— not _focus_ on him!" Vanyel's eyes went wide with shock. Tylendel had _never_ shouted at him, never gotten angry, no matter what. He wondered at the changes working in his lover, and where they had come from. He looked away and willed himself not to fold immediately, the way he knew he would have, years—decades ago, as a teenager. He thought about the consequences of his weak-willed ways then, and steeled himself for the shouting match—certainly not their first, was it?—the shouting match they were about to begin.

"What the hell am _I_ doing? That's what I was about to ask you! Do you _see_ these pulses? Do you know— do you _remember_ what they meant, every other time?"

Tylendel's face darkened, and instead of looking chagrined or whatever else Vanyel might have been hoping for, he scowled and answered, "This isn't like that, Van. Can't you feel the difference?"

Vanyel fought the urge to mimic his words childishly, but felt his anger rising all the same. "This isn't like that, Van" What did he know? Nothing was what. Did he ever stop to think about what it was like for him, Vanyel? Always worrying what accident he would have to defend and explain away next, what fights he had to avoid, or prepare for if he couldn't, this time? He was vaguely aware of a small voice that kept asking him something like "if that was all he felt", but didn't understand. It was small and seemingly irrelevant, like someone talking in the next room, so he simply ignored it. So maybe he _was_ being irrational in anger, but he felt like he had reason enough to behave irrationally every once in a while. Vanyel was _tired_. He was tired of the trouble that followed his lifebonded, as well as the trouble he caused himself. He was tired of the whispers and the stares, tired of being a treated like a pariah,

"That isn't fair, Van-ashke, and you know it" said Tylendel reproachfully, overhearing the trend of his thoughts. "You know I—you _know_ I can't control that"

The common endearment coupled with the almost apologetic tone hit him like a slap in the face, and his anger dissolved into a painful lump in his throat that threatened tears.

"I… I'm sorry" he choked "I'm sorry for everything, I know I'm being selfish… I didn't mean any of it, gods, 'Lendel, I just…"

"I know, ashke, I know…" He said, sighing, and pulled him close. He wondered at how long it had been since he'd comforted Vanyel, instead of the other way around. _Vanyel_ had had to become the strong one from the time— an eternity ago— when he had first returned to Haven. It wasn't fair to him, he thought, and the older herald vowed to try and make up for it. He looked down at the figure sprawled across their bed, a frown marring his otherwise pretty face. _I can do it now,_ he thought resolutely, _now that he's here—there won't be any more trouble Van, I promise…_

* * *

His breath hitched in excitement. It was real. He was there, at Bardic. _Bardic!_ It was too good to be true for someone like him, for someone so poorly, crudely self-taught, for an overlooked illegitimate youngling… for him_, _Medren. He glanced sideways at Tylendel, who had cut his leave at Forst Reach short just to accompany him to the Collegium. He considered thanking him some more, though the man should have been ready to strangle him for relating the feeling profuse gratitude that would well up every time anyone so much as breathed in his direction. Although… the former herald _did_ seem to be improving in mood as they came ever closer to Haven.

The restoration of his short patience, Medren knew, was the other more important reason they had left Forst Reach early, leaving Vanyel behind to handle the tenuous situation with Tashir. Vanyel had noticed how Tylendel seemed to worsen as the days of their short vacation passed. It was supposed to be improving both of their tempers, but even Medren could imagine that for them—for anyone—Forst Reach was not the top destination for resting. Add to that the effect of having to hastily and messily open and control a Gate, and something to do with the way they found Tashir, and the particular way he lost control of his Gifts when upset—ultimately, it was more than time for Tylendel to return home.

So even if escorting his beloved sort-of nephew wasn't the most urgent priority, it was still very good of him, and good of them both to have worked whatever magic of persuasion over Lord Withen to allow him to go. He would make a name for himself now. He wouldn't be an underling to the proper-born heirs, and he wouldn't languish forever on the grudging charity of his indifferent relatives— he would be a Bard now. Maybe just _once_ more would be alright…

"T- Tylendel? I j-just wanted t—"

Tylendel sighed good-naturedly. The youngling couldn't find any other way to repay them or express his thanks than to use his well Gifted voice. Again and _again_ and _again_.

"At this rate, no one will _ever_ want to hear your voice, Bard or not, Medren." The teasing tone softened the words, and betrayed the man's uplifted mood. If he had been feeling otherwise, as he had much earlier, he wouldn't have responded at all.

Tylendel wasn't sure what it was that was causing him to feel so at ease, and although he was feeling better than he had for weeks, he still questioned it. He tried to think logically for the reasons to feel so different, so… light. It wasn't just that he was returning home, it couldn't have been. There wasn't much good at home in Haven unless Vanyel was there. He suddenly felt a pang of guilt hit him. Was it because Vanyel _wasn't _there? No, definitely not. He wasn't jealous of Vanyel or his power, no matter what anyone else thought or said… though it was true he missed his Gifts the way one might miss an arm. A whole part of him was gone, but there had already been years to soothe that raw, jagged loss, and there were still many more years of the same to come.

He continued to dissect the possible sources of his emotional wellbeing, even as he steered Medren through the Collegium in search of Bard Breda. His thoughts were erased however when he unknowingly stumbled into the third, and final, most fateful meeting of his life.

Medren tried to tone down his face splitting grin as he carried his precious lute to his brand new room for the benefit of his escort. He felt the oppressive atmosphere once again settle itself around them heavily and completely as his sort-of Uncle Tylendel fell back into brooding. The man should've just _enjoyed_ the respite, because the gods only knew how much time his Uncles spent doing nothing but brooding together. Well, it wasn't Medren's business anyway.

He tossed aside thoughts of his young but overburdened Uncles in favor of contemplating his new life. He was told he'd be sharing his new quarters with a couple of other boys who were starting their Bardic training, just like him. He met the first, Stefen, as he walked into the room.

"Heyla, I'm Medren. I've only just got here, how about you?" He said cheerfully to the one boy he found half-asleep, sprawled across a couch.

"Hullo" replied the trainee shyly, "'m Stefen" His eyes flicked to Tylendel, who had just appeared in the door with two of Medren's packs, and stayed glued there. He might later have remembered that moment as one of the first indications that he would be shaych, if he had not found avoiding Tylendel's interest one of the chief occupations of his later adolescence and thus purposefully denying any fond memories of him.

Travel-worn and rumpled though he may have been, to young Stefen, likely through some miracle of a bond newly strengthened, Tylendel appeared as a distant and radiant being. Had he been schooled in religion, he surely would have likened him to an angel, though perhaps representative of sorrow or repentance.

It was Tylendel's presence that finally unlocked a boldness the future Bard hadn't dared to show since he had arrived that strange new place, and unsubtly revealing his uncommon interest, he blurted "Na, who's _tha_?" and felt his cheeks bloom red and hot.

"Oh, that's my uh, uncle. Tylendel." Stefen wrinkled his nose, deciding on a whim to attempt the use of the knowledge from the many lessons on court etiquette that were foisted upon him from the moment he entered the Collegium.

"Pleasure to meet you, sir" He offered, sounding out each syllable stiffly, the way he remembered it was said without the lower class accent. Tylendel looked him over, vaguely amused by the strange way the young trainee spoke, but ignoring it in favor of observing the pure _feeling_ that radiated from his direction. Just being near him was like standing too close to a strong Empath. A persistent projection of some very basic sentiment was spilling over and out of him with every breath he took, though he remained completely unconscious of it.

Tylendel shouldn't have been able to feel anything at all from him, or from anyone else, as his Gifts were strongly, almost permanently sealed off from his control. But standing in front of the boy— _Stefen_— was like feeling the warmth of the sun settle on him, heavy and nearly tangible against his skin. He simply stood there, for once forgetting to question it.


	4. Chapter Four

When Stefen awoke the next morning it was to the sound of yet more shouting. Vanyel was at it again, and this time Tylendel really did look properly guilty.

"You did WHAT to him?"

Stefen stared. _Was Vanyel always like this?_ Stress lines marred his perfect face and he looked about ready to tear out his hair. Now that Stefen was closer to him—to them both, he could see their lives weren't the flawless, harmonious existence they should have been. Intellectually he knew that the Vanyel he loved was not the same impossibly perfect Vanyel sung about and idolized, but…

"You can't just do that, 'Lendel! _You_, 'Lendel, you especially!"

But he never imagined the level of dysfunction he would find.

"Lord and Lady, 'Lendel! You can't afford to not think, to just act, you—you just _can't_!" He threw up his hands, giving his lover a pointed look saying "This is _not _over." He spared a glance at Stefen, who sat up slowly, afraid of provoking another tirade, before storming out, leaving the door wide open.

"In case he breaks it" explained Tylendel, closing the door softly. The words _like last time _hung in the air unspoken. Stefen caught a glimpse of Vanyel walking down the corridor. His strides were long and unbroken, at the same sedate pace as always, betraying none of his current frustrations or low thoughts. The young Bard shook his head incredulously.

"This is _insane_" declared Stefen bluntly, at which Tylendel smiled crookedly.

"Did you really expect any different?"

* * *

"Aunt, I… can I talk to you, maybe after this business with the other Herald-Mages?" Savil leveled a long stare at him, the gears in her mind working.

"We don't have much time now, but it may not be a good idea to wait, Van. Especially if this is what I think it's about."

"N-no, it won't interfere with my mage work, but… it just needs to be said. I need your opinion, that's all…" She gave him a hard look. "It _won't_ interfere! I just wanted to let you know." He said sulkily. "As if I didn't know how to control my emotions during a project of this magnitude" He _knew_ it was serious. To those in the Circle it should have been common knowledge—they were losing mages.

It hadn't happened all at once, and it was hard to catch with a war on. There were few Herald-Mages left but demand was as high as ever, and what was worse, and probably even less apparent was that they could not be replaced. There hadn't been any Herald-Mage trainees from nearly the time when Vanyel himself was Chosen.

Savil and a few others, such as the old man, Kilchas, wanted to establish a new way to watch over Valdemar, its borders and the people within—but without endangering the remaining Heralds any further. However, the necessity of doing such a thing was, infuriatingly enough, _still_ being debated by the Circle. He and Savil were more than ready to perform the complicated magics, but they needed more than just the two of them to accomplish their goal properly.

* * *

He looked critically at his rumpled tunic. It was lying neatly folded in a basket between two sets of Whites, all waiting to be picked up by their page. He felt a stupid grin fight to take over his face at the thought of being so close to the object of his infatuation, Vanyel, but tried to hold it down. What was he, a girl? He'd just spent the better part of two minutes staring at their _laundry_, thinking wifely thoughts. And he was pretty sure wifely wasn't even a word. Not that he would be the wife anyway.

He did his best to quash the ridiculous thoughts running through his head, and looked around for something he might take to wear. Not that it was particularly cold out, but the last time he'd walked about in these quarters half naked, he'd practically been molested. Not that that was a particularly bad thing either, most days, but…well… _Tylendel. _That name pretty much summed up all of his problems lately—in more ways than he could guess.

He drew in a long breath that was, embarrassingly enough, let out as a startled hiccup when Tylendel poked his head in the door and interrupted his thoughts. He looked away quickly, as he tried to ignore both Tylendel's blatant onceover of him and his own incessant thoughts about love and wifely things.

"You can have something of Van's to wear if you'd like," suggested Tylendel, easily sensing his discomfort. "I don't think anything of mine will fit…" His voice trailed off as he began to look through some drawers. Frowning, he pulled out a well-worn tunic that, in a past life, might have been a handsome blue color. "Sorry, Stef, but Van… no, neither of us really has anything that _isn't_ a uniform."

"It'll do" said Stefen shortly, though inwardly he thought happily that he might never return it. At the very least it might force the two Heralds into finally buying some clothes instead of relying on things that were hideously outdated or worn.

"Because Haven forbid he ever put his stipend where it was _needed_" murmured Tylendel without thinking.

"_What_?" asked Stefen quickly, not expecting to hear so suddenly anything of that nature at all—though after the hostility he'd been witness to between them, he was certainly curious. Tylendel sighed.

"I don't know what you thought of us before, but… everything isn't exactly going brilliantly between us"

Stefen snorted.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was it too obvious?" asked Tylendel wryly. "I hadn't noticed." He turned his back, leaning his forehead against the door, posture slumped. Stefen watched him awkwardly. If it was _Vanyel_ he wouldn't have hesitated to be at his side, touching him, comforting him—but it was always different with Tylendel. He heard the knob creak as Tylendel opened the door. The herald paused without looking back for a moment, as if trying to decide something… but it was Stefen who decided for him.

"Where are you going?"

"To… just to the gardens" was Tylendel's suddenly hesitant reply.

"I—I'll go with you," Was Stefen's immediate response. "I mean… I should probably be getting back. It's on the way. Sort of. Uh, I mean, you don't mind or anything, right? We could… we could just… walk…" His speech, awkward to the point of being painful, was brought to a merciful end by a loud protest from his empty stomach.

"We'll stop by the kitchens" Tylendel suggested with an amused gleam in his eyes.

* * *

"It's about 'Lendel, isn't it?"

"Aunt, when _isn't_ it about 'Lendel?" groused Vanyel.

"Vanyel…" said the old woman with a warning tone.

"Aunt," was his sharply mocking response. She took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling for a bit before continuing.

"He's not with the Mindhealers." It was a statement, meant to convey that _it couldn't have been _that bad_ considering that there hadn't been the need to leave him _there_ again_. Vanyel frowned.

There was no good way to explain what 'Lendel had tried to do, and it was beyond him to even know what the result was. It was impossible to relate through words and even harder to sense now that Tylendel had done his best to block most of what he had unleashed within the Bard. It wasn't like anything he had ever seen or felt before. He felt uneasy even attempting to explain it. And, really, anything ever to do with his Tylendel had mixed results, and his Savil knew that as well as him, so talking to her really shouldn't have given him such a feeling of foreboding, but… The whole situation seemed to reach so far beyond his understanding, he was afraid of what it might bring.

Among the Heralds, Vanyel's power was virtually unrivaled, and his rank was second only to the Queen's Own. There was little if nothing beyond his reach and control in life—excepting his lover and lifebonded, Tylendel. Perhaps it was unfair to say that the crux of a grand majority of his problems lay with Tylendel, but more and more often that seemed to be the case to him.

Tylendel was the only man to ever truly approach Vanyel's strength. There was no reliable way to test it, of course, but the rumors went that Tylendel might even surpass the legendary Herald Mage. What was more, Tylendel was one of the few Mage-Gifted in Valdemar, and with a war on the Circle had not been doing themselves any favors by letting him fade away in the Collegium gardens. That and nothing else had been the real reason for Tylendel's reinstatement as a Herald, though his reinstatement was in fact nothing more than the unblocking of his Gifts. It would not be a stretch to say that nearly the entire Circle, and the Court beyond them regarded Tylendel with distrust and an intense, irrational dislike. He was once again a Herald, but in name and duties only. He did not have a Companion. Though his forgiveness had been granted to him more than a decade ago by the Companions more sincerely and wholly than their human counterparts could ever manage, a bond broken by repudiation was both impossible and undesirable to mend. His lack of a Companion was a unique deformity of his Heraldic status, a mark against his reliability in the eyes of the public, and a personal cross to bear for the rest of his life, as a reminder of past mistakes and to cherish the remaining bonds he possessed.

* * *

Stefen took his seat, perched on the edge of a fountain. He watched Tylendel greet an old, bent gardener and shoo him away for lunch-break before settling himself down in the man's place to continue his work.

"…'Lendel?" He breathed out softly. Tylendel gave a secret smile, privately enjoying the way his shortened name fell from the young Bard's lips. Not noticing, or perhaps choosing not to notice his reaction, Stefen continued, "Would you… 'Lendel, would you…" his voice shook, but it wasn't tears, no, it couldn't be tears… "Please tell me what's happened between you and Vanyel?"

"Vanyel?" He frowned, full of confusion. "But Stefen… nothing's happened"

"I meant…" Stefen's features twisted, upset, "t-the way he treats you." It hurt him to say it, but from what he had been seeing of the two lately, Vanyel had been acting incredibly selfishly and it… it just didn't seem right. Though he still envied Tylendel tremendously for being Vanyel's lover, and could only dream of being in his place, he was beginning to realize that there was more to the problems and the relationship between the two lifebonded than he had originally thought.

* * *

"Did you See the way his magic flared? The overtones in his aura…"

"Vanyel, you forget that unless he causes a mage-storm or something else equally large scale—only you can see him."

"That's not true. I'm sure anyone with the Sight… I remember with Tashir, you know how he was just like 'Lendel—anyway, I saw it clearly in him also."

"You were right beside Tashir at that point, and I wasn't anywhere near Tylendel yesterday. You know that your bond with him is the reason you don't need to be there to sense him, as it's… much stronger than most." Vanyel flinched. If that was meant to be a compliment, it certainly didn't feel like one.

"My point is he _hadn't_ lost control. It wasn't anything like his other episodes, but it wasn't … it didn't seem normal. I don't know what he was thinking, or if he thought about it at all and…"

"If he still had control then, frankly, I don't see the problem. There are many things we don't understand about Gifts. There are Talents and shades of power that—"

"But that's exactly the problem! He had the control, and yet he still—he _knowingly_—" He choked, the words sticking in his throat. When the gist of what he was wanted to say finally got through to his aunt, the change in her countenance was remarkable to watch.

"Vanyel, even if it seems that he hasn't lost control… if he—if he _hurt _someone, Vanyel—you tell me this instant. It's dangerous for you, for him, whoever else got involved in this mess, and for Tylendel's place in the Circle."

"What could it matter now?" asked the young-old Herald, with a hint of hysteria in his voice. "The Circle! They all hate us anyway! No one can forget the past, especially when it keeps coming back to haunt us, practically every other year! No, don't tell me, I can see you want to say it, too, _he can't help it, it's not his fault_, I _know_ that, don't you think I would _know_ that better than _anyone_? Gods, Aunt, I just… I can hardly stand it anymore. …About what happened yesterday, it was Stefen, Bard Stefen, have you met him?"

"The King's latest hope for a cure—yes, I've seen the lad."

"Well… I'm not sure how or even what yet, but… I _know_ 'Lendel did _something_ to him, because afterwards… I could Feel him, his emotions, the way I do with 'Lendel… Tylendel blocked him after, I think, and he told me to shield carefully, but… If he _wasn't_ shielded, then thoughts, too… Aunt you said yourself it isn't possible to See certain things in others unless you're there with them, but I _Saw_ Stefen and 'Lendel and… I think Stefen Saw right back."

Savil sat back and breathed deeply. If everything Vanyel told her was true, then 'Lendel was in for a world of trouble. There was no way they could excuse or suppress this, considering Tylendel's history of… instability, to put it kindly.

This transgression absolutely had to be out in the open, and a way to settle it had to be discussed by the Circle. Violating or influencing the mind was as serious an offense as murder. And it wouldn't help that most of the Circle were already eager to believe both of the wretched Tylendel.

* * *

"I meant… t-the way he treats you." Then he hesitated, as a new thought occurred to him. "It isn't…is it because of me?"

"No, kechara, never. And—about Van, I know he's honestly just worried about me, and it's true he's got more than enough reasons to act the way he does—"

"That's _not_ true!" Stefen nearly shouted. "'Lendel, it… it can't be true."

"Stefen," He replied coldly "You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know—you _can't_ know… Vanyel and I… our problems…"

"You're _lifebonded_, aren't you? That's what everyone says, and I've never doubted it before, but—but—" His eyes began to sting. _That's not how this is supposed to work!_

"Ste—Stefen, that's _enough_." Tylendel's voice wavered suddenly, and he turned his face away. This time, Stefen did stand to embrace the Herald lightly.

"I'm sorry for, well, pushing you so much. But, 'Lendel, please, how can I understand or… or help if I don't know what's between you…" He trailed off, unsure of the older man's mood.

"You know we _are _lifebonded" said Tylendel, sounding cross.

"Oh!" said Stefen, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I knew _that_. It's not…obvious, but it's kind of nice."

"Nice?"

"You can see it—that you belong together. It's just…nice" _And frustrating._ But although his feelings about both were conflicted, and often ran to jealousy, he meant every word he said.

Tylendel seemed to consider this for a while. Then suddenly, he asked, "Do you know the Heralds Mardic and Donni?" Stefen shook his head, unsure where he was going with this.

"They're lifebonded too. So are Randale and Shavri—" Stefen started, looking up to meet his eyes. Realizing his mistake, Tylendel continued, "Sorry, that is—the King and His Own. There are others, too, _Tayledras_—hawkbrother pairs that I know, but none of them have had problems like we do. Even now, with Randi sick as he is…"

_King Randale and the King's Own Herald!_, thought Stefen with amazement. They certainly weren't wed, but as a lifebonded pair so close, there was no way that a wedding to anyone else for either of them could be allowed. And Shavri had a daughter—Jisa, was it? She must have been only a few years younger than Stefen himself, or so he assumed. She could be in line for the throne, then. But Stefen had never heard her name mentioned in connection with the King's and it was pure chance he'd ever heard her named at all. Why, then, when she could only be the King's—Shavri's lifebonded's—daughter…?

"But Tylendel, doesn't that put Jisa in line?"

He paused in his work, and out of Stefen's sight, his hands were tightly clenched, his fingers bloodless. He reflected on the use of revealing such a long held and damaging secret, and decided that for once, he didn't care.

"No." A thorn out of his side.

Stefen flinched at the older man's darkly curt response. _Did I ask something wrong?_ Slowly, deliberately now, Tylendel continued.

"Randale—the King—is sterile." Bitterness seeped out of his pores. He watched, detached, the bard's eyes grow big.

"Sterile…?"

"And, you know, Shavri so _desperately_ wished for a child…"

"But it's… it's heresy" said Stefen, aghast "who would presume to… I mean, the King! If King Randale didn't father her, th-then—"

"Vanyel. Vanyel did."

* * *

Notes: Um. _Cuckoldry_. Go look it up?

-

Also! I hate writing scenes with Vanyel, can you tell? Even though his seem to come out longer… Not that I hate Vanyel, of course. Am I characterizing him too negatively? Ah… probably… and I haven't even gotten to the _really _bad parts yet. Ehehe…

-

Also notice the major insertion of a plot-hole-filling rant close to the middle of this chapter. It's kind of awkward, I know.


	5. Chapter Five

Warnings?

For a story that started out simply because I wanted to read something fluffy and smutty about a threesome (and couldn't find any), this certainly has degenerated (in a good way?). So. Neglect, adultery, emotional abuse, and alcoholism will be present from here on out. And some other stuff I haven't gotten to yet.

Also, I had to make up some OCs, which was annoying. And I really can't invent Lackey-esque names. They're weird, so I cheated, mostly. You'll see.

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"…But if the King didn't father Jisa, th-then"

"Vanyel. Vanyel did."

Stefen sat back stunned, nearly falling into the fountain he was perched on.

They sat there then, for a while as the hour grew long. The wizened old gardener returned presently, causing them to stumble back into consciousness, Tylendel apologizing profusely for staying idle. The man waved it off, noting that it "warn't t' firs time yah bin 'n sich a state, lad."

"Not the first and not the last, either" granted Tylendel, his smile edged with bitterness. The man didn't answer, but the shadow of a grin on his homely, good-natured face did not waver.

"Goa on aght, then. This'll keep"

Sighing, the herald turned back to Stefen. He was offering him a chance to step back now and escape the rest of his tale, for the Lord and Lady knew there was more, an infinite amount more of vile things to reveal should the young man choose to stay long enough for him to get it all out. And it would, it would come out now that he had started. He was indisposed to stop the vitriol only now beginning to well up and rush forth into the open air in the form of protests of half-acknowledged grudges and injuries. Some things he would never have even noticed bothered him before considering how he'd always seen worse, always borne worse and what good did complaining about it do? But now he felt it, he felt all of it and now he saw how the words would drain out whether he had Stefen as his audience or not. Even with these thoughts swirling in his head, and building up in the back of his throat, he mastered himself quickly, efficiently and asked—

"Were you going back? Stefen?"

"Ye-es" He didn't move. He couldn't leave now. He had so many questions, although his eagerness to ask them was fast waning. This wasn't just court gossip, it was… serious, and the reality, the closeness, of it to his own life made it sickening rather than shocking or exciting like any other story he might be able to recall of an indiscrete or immoral courtesan. It wasn't just about, well, _cuckolding_ the King, which he was pretty sure was enough to land anyone in Hell or worse anyway—it was about consequences. What about Tylendel's feelings? What was the logic behind such an abysmally unsacred act? How could it even occur? The way Tylendel told it, Shavri, being "desperate for a child", was the instigator, but exactly where was Tylendel in all of this anyway, that wouldn't allow him to prevent it, or protect the… the _sanctity_ of his bond? Didn't he care? And didn't Vanyel? He could hardly believe that it was real, but there was a lovely, Gifted girl that by existing granted truth to Tylendel's hellish revelation.

Considering that Jisa was nearing adulthood already, it'd been a long time since the incident of her conception, but the way Tylendel still spoke of it with venom in his syllables indicated that it wasn't something he had ever honestly been able to forget. Again he wondered what could have possessed Vanyel to commit such a travesty. Still he didn't dare voice his conjectures. If he asked about Vanyel, let alone directly about Jisa or anything else about that affair, it would be solely with the interest to help them both. If he could not have them (or more specifically Vanyel), as he knew he could not, then he could at least help them be whole once again, as it was clear to him they needed it so badly. Lifebonded or not, the trials they had apparently gone through were enough to decimate any relationship, no matter the level of dedication to it, and excluding the very bond itself, Stefen hadn't the faintest idea what was holding the two men together. Whatever it was, they deserved better than the dysfunctional partnership they were burdened by currently, and Stefen hoped to be the one to change that for the better.

It would have been like a grand game of match-making, he thought lightly, if they hadn't already been together. But technically "together" or not, they had more than one obstacle standing in their way of their happiness. And Stefen did not yet know that Vanyel's infidelity was only one transgression among many that both he and Tylendel had committed.

It was, at least, a mark of his increased maturity (and perhaps morals) since he had begun sharing heralds' company that he did not once consider news of Vanyel's indiscretions an "opportunity", as he might have earlier, had it been anyone else, or had the revelation been of any less raw shock value. He certainly lusted after the herald, and had little shame in admitting it, though if he had been a bit more honest or perceptive in his own feelings he might have known too that his feelings went deeper than lust or passing fancy. There was also the fact that Vanyel was in (what had previously seemed to be) a completely faithful and satisfying lifebond, which made it impossible for anyone to court him with serious intention. And then he had actually gotten to know Tylendel instead of allowing his irrational jealousy of him justify his habit of generally ignoring the herald's existence. He had discovered empathy quite suddenly and was finding it somewhat difficult to handle.

"Well, I was thinking, there's someone I'd like you to meet…" Stefen nodded dumbly in response, unable to express everything he was thinking, and was content to simply follow him for now.

They were in Companion's Field.

Tylendel stroked the neck of the nearest, encouraging Stefen subtly to be at ease. He'd never been around so many Companions in his life, and so close. He'd hardly had contact with _horses_, not needing them for travel, or any other reason, as a Trainee with all of his needs met within the Collegium grounds. Only landed nobles really rode horses anyway, and Stefen had spent his entire life before Bardic trapped in the slums of Haven, as far from nobility as ignorant dirt could be.

"There are so many" He said in wonderment. Tylendel looked at him, surprised that he should notice, not realizing that Stefen was merely unaccustomed to the company of Companions and not guessing at the larger meaning.

"…yeah" He said softly.

"Isn't it good? The Companions each stand for a Herald. I never knew we had so many, or maybe it just seems like more up close?"

"No, Stefen… These Companions—here, Kethdrel, Teiresias, Sibyl…" he pointed out a few that had walked over and lounged near them. "Most of them here right now have never Chosen."

"But… why? I mean, I've never really heard of a Companion without a Herald. Is it supposed to be like this? I mean, is it normal?"

"At first… at first, when they were born, we thought it meant we were getting _more_ Heralds. One day they would go out and find their Chosen, the usual, and so we would have enough to fight the war. Like a blessing from old King Valdemar, the Havens, the gods, whatever you like, we assumed an increase in trainees was coming, but instead we've had less and less… and no Mage-gifted children at all.

No one is sure what has happened to the would-be Chosen, or even if there were any in the first place. We think—Teiresias, the other un-bonded Companions and I—think that there _were_ Chosen, or should have been, but we're not sure why they can't be found… and not many will listen to what we say anyway"

Stefen listened to their explanations—Tylendel's and the Companion's—completely dumbfounded. He had thought of himself previously as well-informed, and probably one of the Court's bigger gossips, but the amount of information—more than that, the revelations and inversion of perspectives he had been privy to in the past few days were almost too much to process. How could all of this be happening? The last he knew, his world consisted solely of the Court and its machinations, shallow, perhaps, but something he was perfectly equipped and content to handle. Now listening to Tylendel, that world was expanding, and he felt very small and lost, being thrust into a side of things he'd never seen or guessed at before.

Though he found that he didn't much mind listening to Tylendel and interacting in what was probably the most normal way ever since they'd first met, the depth and sheer amount of his divulgences in the short amount of time were staggering. He paused, forcing himself to collect his thoughts enough to pose another actually coherent question in light of all the new and frankly shocking information he was being told.

"How do you know that they should have Chosen, then? What if these just… didn't?" He watched the Herald closely as he turned to one Companion and another, presumably listening to them "talk".

_:Is it possible to miss a bond you've never known?:_

Stefen started at the foreign voice that cut so suddenly through his thoughts. "I did not think that!" he cried out stupidly, accusingly. He realized a second later than he reacted, that what he felt as a thought must have been Mindspeech. It felt strange and extremely foreign, a medium completely beyond regular communication. For a frightening second he had felt as if something _other_ had been thinking for him, and he didn't like that at all.

He never even thought that Companions could communicate with anyone who didn't have any type of Mindspeaking gifts. In fact, he had been under the impression that Companions only talked to their Chosen—although considering that these didn't _have_ any, that theory didn't really make much sense. He looked down at his feet, feeling rather stupid and more than a little confused. He heard one of the Companions whickering in amusement, despite the somber attitude and tone of the original mind-voice, and even Tylendel, Empathetically privy to the young man's embarrassment, hid a smile.

"You'll get used to it" He assured him. _Get used to it?_

"We'll keep talking like this?" he asked quickly, a strange gladness shining through his words.

"We like company, we just don't get it so often," interpreted Tylendel for one of the more timid, or perhaps more polite, Companions. He thought it might have been the small, soft-looking female—Sibyl?

"Thank you" he said shyly, looking into the bright blue eyes of the Companion before him. The intelligence he saw there shouldn't have surprised him, but it did anyway. He recognized the privilege he was given by befriending the young Chosen-less Companions, and felt once again the precipice of a world unknown to him yawning at his feet. "Thank you."

* * *

It was such a nightmare, this thing that Lendel had started. Hell, his whole life was beginning to seem like one long nightmare. His King, his friend, Randale was dying. The war effort was going well enough, and their border with Karse was secure, but domestic troubles were on the rise; petty squabbles in politics and things that did not immediately affect the security and quality of life of the people took precedence over what he felt was truly important, such as getting the go-ahead in establishing the magical web of protection that he and Savil had worked out in theory. Then there was Stefen, a nice enough lad, but whose presence in his life was being to set everything off kilter.

Even besides the… the intrusion on the Bard's mind by Tylendel, which presented a dilemma that he did not even want to begin to contemplate, Stefen had a way of _changing_ things that he wasn't sure he liked. Never before had he felt so disappointed in himself and what he was getting from life. True, he was far too absorbed in work, and true he did not have many friends, and true he was estranged from the vast majority of his family… but those things had never bothered him as much as they did now. With Stefen there to show him what a friend could be, and how to laugh, and to make him take leaves from his Heraldic duties when he needed it, everything was different. And it was all because of Stefen, young and bright …and shaych.

Stefen was infatuated with him, he knew. It wasn't hard to tell, and besides, it was something Stefen had in common with probably more than half of Haven's population. The young Bard's coy nature and flirtatiousness should have made him feel uncomfortable in his presence—and it did, at first. Now, though, a big part of the reason Vanyel was starting to regret keeping his company was that he too felt the dangerous attraction there. And there was no way he could ever let that attraction develop, not with his past offenses in that area.

He felt heavy with guilt, though it wasn't as if he had even done anything to warrant the feeling, this time. His mind turned to Shavri, Jisa and the others time and again. He couldn't seem to get them out of his head that whole afternoon. _Is Tylendel thinking of them, too?_

Tylendel… After his conversation with Savil that morning, she had become hell bent on having both Lendel and Stefen examined before deciding what to do with them. He wasn't sure whether she meant an examination by mind-healers, herald-mages, or by Savil herself, but he was betting on all three. But that was a problem for tomorrow. For now, he had a plan—he was simply going to do what he always did in these situations. In sum, he was going to get well and truly sloshed.

* * *

"I should be getting back" said Stefen faintly.

"Say hello to Medren when you see him" responded Tylendel blithely, as if they had just talked about nothing at all. He was stretched out on the grass, comforted by the presence of his Chosen-less fellows. They were closer to him than any other herald and had grown so during the long trips when they accompanied him in shifts on Circuit and to the front. As Tylendel had explained to Stefen, they were by no means Companion and Chosen, but they were friends, and partners, when an assignment had to be done.

Stefen still hadn't left. He shifted in place uncertainly.

"I want to talk to Vanyel" Tylendel frowned momentarily in response.

"I'm not sure you'll be able to tonight"

"Oh. Is he still working?" He wasn't sure what sort of jobs there were in Haven that could keep _Vanyel_ busy, but it seemed like a logical conclusion to make.

Tylendel could tell that Stefen really did want to leave, at least to rest and reorder his thoughts, and he didn't think it wise to continue keeping him, but he went against his better judgment and asked Teiresias to talk to Yfandes for him. To his surprise, she answered him directly.

_:One day, Tylendel, after years of speaking with every Companion in the field, perhaps you will learn to speak to me:_

_:Yes, Yfandes: _He answered respectfully, a light sheepishness weaving through his thoughts. He still couldn't accustom himself to speaking with her, feeling her so closely through Van—it reminded him of—Gala— Yfandes responded quickly, diverting his train of thought.

_:You were asking for Vanyel?:_

_:Stefen was. I didn't expect to see him tonight:_

_:No, and why? He's at The Bar.: _He could feel the disapproval radiating off of her. _:_I _am not going to fetch him, tonight or tomorrow—and you are _not_ to do so either, Tylendel.:_ She loved her Chosen, but she did not have to approve of his habits. It was a long standing point of contention between Vanyel and Yfandes, one that Tylendel was not really happy to weigh in on. He dreaded his opinions being swept away like so much insignificant dust, and so preferred not having any. Again, Yfandes icily efficient presence cut through his mind.

_:Send your Bard, then, if you're so worried about him.:_

Tylendel sputtered. "Absolutely not!" He shouted aloud.

"What? Are you talking to him? What'd he say?" Stefen looked around pleadingly. "Do you know if he's talking to Vanyel?" Teiresias, the boldest of the unbound Companions, took pity on Stefen and his aversion to mindspeech and slowly and deliberately shook his head in negation.

"_Tylendel_," whined Stefen. The herald sighed in irritation.

"Yfandes says he's out drinking!" Stefen sat up straighter in interest. Now _that_ sounded like an opportunity. He hadn't had a drink since the last time he'd been in the slums—not that it was likely he'd find Vanyel down there, of course. It would probably be expensive, wherever he was, but Stefen figured he could do with something a little stronger than wine tonight.

He wasn't at all sure what he wanted to say to Vanyel when he found him, he just… wanted to make sure that Vanyel was the same person he'd been since they'd met. It sounded silly, but after all that Stefen had heard that day, he wanted to see Vanyel as he always did, and know that whatever had gone wrong in his past was over, or could be fixed. He knew that he was still a good person. He was a herald, after all. But as any of those present with him would have pointed out; heralds are human, and even heralds may fall.

..........

..........

..........

I tried to be a bit heavier on relating the introspection and thoughts and such of the characters, (and at the same time filling in miles of back story and also constructing a path for future plot…) and my only reservation is that it takes away from the flow of dialogue, but I did my best to keep it all straight.

…also! Do I have fun giving random people poorly imitated Yorkshire accents that I mostly adapt from my beat-up three dollar copy of Wuthering Heights? …That was a blatantly specific rhetorical question, but why yes, I do. Eheh.


	6. Chapter Six

Man, I hope people read this because I've been considering **changing the rating to M**. This was, after all, concocted for my own perverted amusement, and if encouraged, it'll be getting a helluva lot more interesting in a few chapters. I welcome the opinions of those who read this on future shifts away from, shall we say... content of pure literary merit. That said, please review?

* * *

Sybil's silver-shod hooves whispered over the uneven paving stones. Stefen followed a few paces behind. He didn't dream of riding her, a _Companion_, especially since they'd only been introduced personally earlier that day. No one was supposed to ride a Companion but their Chosen—and, apparently, Tylendel, who had special license due to his unique status, and his close friendship with many of the Companions. Sybil herself had volunteered to take Stefen as far as Tylendel would will her to go. It wasn't too far, either, as he didn't particularly _want_ the Bard to find him, no matter what Yfandes had to say on the matter.

When they left the Palace grounds and the surrounding areas that contained the Collegiums, they passed through the innermost district without stopping, much to Stefen's surprise. Like most large cities of the time, it was built around the Palace in a series of concentric circles. The wealthiest districts were always those closest to the center, and the most protected from invasions-not that there had been any of those for more than a hundred years. Their now apparent destination, the slums, spilled out over the very edges of Haven.

Stefen wondered what exactly Tylendel knew of his past. He was clearly hoping that the bard would never find his lover, in whatever rundown bar he was hiding, or perhaps that the boy would be intimidated by the slums and ask the quiet Companion to quickly lead him back. If that was in fact what the blond herald was expecting of him, then he was in for a nasty surprise. Stefen wasn't like them, born into noble, landed houses (although Tylendel had since been disowned from the house of Frelennye). He was from the ghetto, and it was the part of the city he knew best. He was far from out of place near his childhood haunts, and he had taken pains from the time of his adolescence to the present to make sure he never would be.

It had all started when he had first been dragged to the Collegium by the indomitable Bard Lynnell. The other bardic students didn't approve of his accent or lower birth. If he couldn't fit in amongst the higher-born, as he thought he never would, then he wanted to know that he would never lose the knowledge of where he came, as low as it might have been.

Medren, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less about his relative position in life, and they became close friends because of it. Medren's loyal friendship became even more important to him as he grew older, when he revealed that he was shaych. No one would room with him—no one but Medren, that was. It could've been humiliating, but instead, it was thankfully not an issue. There wasn't anyone in the world Stefen would rather have had as a friend, a brother in all but blood. Even now, Medren had been an unimaginably great help, inadvertently getting him a formal position as a full Bard directly under the King, and fostering the friendship between him and Vanyel.

Eventually, he thanked Sybil quietly for her company and ducked into one of the cheapest, least regulated bars he knew of. When he first started out he thought that he might run into the herald by pure luck or coincidence or perhaps be led to him by some mystical connection of fate. He snorted, not putting any stock into his own internal monologue. It was growing dark and he no longer had any hope of stumbling across him. What Stefen had not been counting on, however, was the interference of the same hand of fate he had dismissed from his thoughts a moment before. As he ordered something nasty and sure to make him regret it later, Stefen found him in what he must have thought was the unlikeliest of places; namely, on the floor in a corner of that same filthy bar.

He had by that time of night—still a candlemark or two from midnight—already drunk himself into a stupor. Even so, Vanyel, after more than a decade of the habit had a formidable tolerance. Stefen on the contrary, while by no means a lightweight, knew his limits, and upon recognizing the near unconscious man decided it would be best to stop while he could still (to some extent) think clearly enough to find them both a place to weather the night. He would not have bothered had he been alone, but he felt somehow responsible for the older man's wellbeing, and sought from the owner of the questionable establishment a corner of the inner room of the building in which to sleep.

Vanyel, unbeknownst to Stefen, was still not as far gone as he seemed, nor as drunk as he would like to be—but that was another matter entirely. As the most powerful Herald that existed within living memory, Vanyel had a duty to the Kingdom that never ended. The country could not afford to have him insensible, unreachable and useless in a dirty alley way of a bar. This meant that in order to retain his habit he had to first be certain of two things: that it would not interfere with his Heraldic duties, and secondly, that he learn to perfectly exist on two separate planes of consciousness. The first was easy enough to accomplish considering that his iron self control had always been the strongest tool he had available to shape his life. That had held true from the time when the best he could manage was a pathetic dream of ice to the present day.

The second condition was necessary for his own peace of mind—he needed a place in his mind to lose his pain in a haze of alcohol, and another where no matter his state of inebriation he would be able to respond to any threat appropriately, and be able to discern intent—that of an assassin or a thief, as opposed to a fed up barman tossing him out to sleep in the street.

The result of remaining alert on at least one level meant that he was not able to forget himself and his thoughts as easily as he would have liked. His only comfort after a night of obsessing over past misdeeds and misfortunes in a self depressed state was that he would remember little to none of it in the morning. And as far as he was concerned, not remembering something was tantamount to it not having happened at all. Thus in his own edited memory he could spend a night guilt-free in blissful thoughtlessness. In the meantime, however, he was prisoner to a procession of remembrances likely produced by his own need for penance.

"_You slept with Shavri"_

_Vanyel did not cringe outwardly, but Tylendel could feel him growing anxious through their bond. He knew exactly what Vanyel was hoping for; namely, an escape, literal or symbolic—he did not want to be having this conversation. _Too bad._ If Tylendel, shattered as he was, could feel and understand Vanyel's humors, why could Vanyel never manage the same for him?_

"_Not just her" His voice couldn't decide whether it wanted that to be a statement or question. He somehow still hoped Vanyel could deny it and make everything all right again, but he knew most of the truth from a conversation with Randale. Proving him right, Vanyel jerked his head in a mechanical nod. _

"_Tayledras. Sh-she had twins." Saying that might have been stupid, irrelevant as it was, but he couldn't bear to be silent. Still, there wasn't much else he could say at that point without immediately bursting into silly, selfish, adulterated tears._

_He thought he knew what Tylendel was thinking—they were both women who wanted children. In truth, that barely mattered to Tylendel. He just wasn't sure what to feel, besides ignored._

"_But no men" Was it a question? Was it?_

"_Yeh-" Vanyel's voice caught. He tried again, quietly and slowly enunciating what he was sure was his death sentence. "Y-yes" He could not keep the all consuming shame out of his voice. "…there was… another man." _

_Tylendel took a sharp breath and released it as something that was not quite a sob. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes._

"_Was he nothing to you?"_

_Vanyel nodded fervently, ready to express his relief, to explain, and to be forgiven._

"_Nothing! I didn't know him, he—"_

"_I guess that's one thing we'll have in common, being nothing to you." _

_Vanyel reeled._

"_I wondered, when you stopped visiting me. I told myself you were on assignment. I guess not." Now Tylendel, too, wanted to leave, badly. He went down a mental list of whose places he might stay the night (or the next few weeks, for that matter). There was the old gardener, his friend and father figure, there was Mardic and Donni, Savil, Randale-though he wasn't sure he could trust himself around Shavri. The stables. But, no, he thought. _Not this time.

_He faced Vanyel, and said as evenly as he could manage, "Get out."_ _And he went into their bedroom and shut the door, as if Vanyel had already gone._

Farther back now—it was the first time he had missed visiting Tylendel after he had relapsed and was with the Healers. Shavri had found him, incapacitated with drink.

_Vanyel, this is beginning to present a problem… you can't go on like this!_

He could still hear her words as if she was standing beside him. He knew what he had answered.

_No problem, here. _To prove his still capable control he had held up a glowing sphere of mage energy. It hadn't helped his case any, throwing around his magic. She was upset.

_You're drunk right now! Vanyel, why are you doing this? _Her eyes teared. She had been prone to excesses of emotion around that time. She had apparently discovered she was incapable of bearing children, and the gods knew she and Randale had tried. She wanted it so badly. They couldn't be married, her and Randi—no, they couldn't, they couldn't—she was too frightened of what she perceived to be the responsibilities of the Crown, and besides, it probably wouldn't even be allowed, a marriage to someone like _her_, lifebond or not. She wanted a child. She wanted permanence; a strong, tangible show of their love for each other. With marriage out of the question, her sole frantic purpose had become to bear children, but now… It seemed that too would be denied her. She hadn't yet told anyone. She didn't think telling Vanyel would really count, drunk as he was, it was likely he wouldn't even remember.

_What's wrong Shav?_ He had asked, his speech slurring only slightly. He was surprised when she told him. No one had known or could have even guessed. He knew Shavri could be fragile, and this was making her nervous disposition all the worse.

_Oh, but you're so pretty Shavri_, he had said. _You'd make great kids…_ he was only mumbling incoherently, trying in his own confused way to console her…

He wasn't sure of the details of that night, not anymore. He didn't know why or how Shavri had consented to sleeping with him. At least he had an excuse, he thought half-heartedly. She should've known better.

He hadn't even meant to go to the bar that night. It was true that he would drink heavily when upset, and especially when he was without Lendel, but the day that had preceded Jisa's fateful conception hadn't been especially bad, had it? He struggled to recall it. He wasn't able to, at least not immediately, as he was being disturbed from his musing semi consciousness by someone particularly persistent. He was finally forced to recognize them beyond simply knowing they were not a threat…

"Stef… Stefen?" The boy looked at him with a somewhat concerned face. His lips moved but Vanyel didn't bother to understand his words. With sudden clarity he remembered the day again. Stefen's presence drew it out of the recesses of his mind, it seemed. He earnestly and half unintelligibly began to recount the day he had met a small orphaned boy in the slums with too big eyes and too skinny limbs, and a near fatal ague.

And oh, yes, Stefen was concerned—concerned for his health, maybe. He was disgusted, and nearing the point of being physically ill. There was no way he could listen to Vanyel's demented soliloquies for much longer. Seeing him in that state was far, far worse than he could ever have imagined. Born into abject poverty, of course he knew the darker side of the drink, had seen those enslaved by it, or by worse things, as the old beggar woman Berte had been. He also knew victims that suffered at the hands of the random violence that lurked in the bottom of the strongest spirits' cups. He knew men could go mad with the choler, melancholy or mania that drugs induced. This was the truth of the world, the way of the ghetto—it _wasn't_ the way of Heralds or of inner Haven, or so he had believed.

Still, it was nothing new to him. He had become accustomed to it long ago, and thought himself perfectly inured. Why, then, did it hurt so? _Because it shouldn't have been like this. Vanyel, my Vanyel, isn't supposed to be like this!_ He clamped his throat down on a sound that was suspiciously like a whimper and tried not to listen as Vanyel segued into another heartrending tale.

_

* * *

He had been walking through the streets of Haven, going nowhere in particular. Tylendel had relapsed for the first time in the four years since they had been reunited. As much as Vanyel sometimes resented the blocks placed over Tylendel's Gifts, preventing him from being a Herald and, Vanyel thought, from deepening their lifebond, the blocks had proved themselves to be invaluable in the eventuality of his breakdowns._

_It had been a couple a months since Tylendel had been admitted into the Healer's Collegium and Vanyel had been forced to decrease the number of his visits from nearly constant to twice a week because of the amount of his responsibilities that had piled up. He couldn't call in favors forever, after all. Besides, he wasn't the only one with a sick lover to think of—Shavri's duties as King's Own were unofficially his as well. Shavri was abysmal at real Herald-work and only he was capable of taking on the immense work of the King's Own in her place. (1)_ _He was planning to go back to Tylendel that evening, but there was still plenty of time between now and then. When he finally stopped walking he was vaguely ashamed to find himself in front of one of his now most frequent haunts—a lowly nondescript bar of Haven's outermost ring. He shook his head determinedly. There wasn't time for that today and so, resolved in his abstinence, he continued walking._

_He paused to inspect what looked like a newly constructed building, when he was nearly bowled over by a frantically out of breath young Herald. She was holding several packages of what appeared to be assorted dry foodstuffs. He helped her in picking up the few that had fallen._

"_Can I help you in anything, Herald?" He asked curiously. She accepted his offer unhesitatingly._

_The new construction was apparently one of the late Queen's pet projects to better the city. (2) The city planner had fought for and won the rights (and the funds) to begin the program. It was a program dedicated to helping the less fortunate of Haven's population. For now, they were focused on providing a free, basic education for all children with the added bonus of a free meal each day a child appeared for instruction. In the future they hoped to expand the already highly successful program to include basic Healing for low cost and other necessities that were so often lacking in the poverty stricken areas of their capital._

_It sounded brilliant to him, and he was almost surprised he hadn't heard of it before. Then again, he was currently far too embroiled in farther-reaching problems of national defense against enemy mages and relations with key allies in the ongoing conflicts with Karse to ever have noticed something so locally based. He was also impressed by the fierce work ethic displayed by his fellow herald. She had not even skipped a beat upon seeing his face, which was something entirely uncommon no matter who he dealt with. He still didn't know her name, so intent was she on accomplishing her work. In what seemed like no time at all, they had fed a countless amount of ragged young children as she told him all about her mission in the program. What he appreciated most of all, though, was the anonymity of the menial work and the distraction it gave him from his daily worries._

:Is that so? Even better than drinking, is charity work, my Chosen?:

_Vanyel stiffened at the touch of Yfandes' acerbic mind-voice. He wanted badly to to tell her to simply shut up, because they'd been having a version of this argument literally every other day, but restrained himself. Not that it actually mattered if he said it or not—she felt the sentiment quite clearly, and he could picture her turning her back to him with a snort of superiority. He sneered at nothing, hurt that she would choose to bother him when he hadn't even done anything that whole day worthy of such a performance._

_He was startled out of his thoughts by a gentle tug on his coat. A small boy looked up at him, staring at the very last bread roll that he held in his hand._

"_Stefen!" scolded the woman Herald "What did I say about coming back here? This food is for the children who go to school. Herald Vanyel…"_

_They both ignored her._ _Again, warningly, "Stefen…"_

"_He can't speak" interrupted Vanyel suddenly, unsure why he was so certain of it. He crouched down to the boy's eye level. He looked feverish and about half-starved to boot. He held out the bread, now cold, and watched the child struggle to eat it. He wanted it badly; that much was clear, and the way he kept a wary eye on Vanyel, as if he might snatch it back at any moment suggested that it had already happened more than once because of his apparent illness. With gentle fingers, the herald unwrapped a scarf of patches and rags from the boy's neck. His throat looked swollen and tender._

_The other herald gasped, "He has the ague! Herald Vanyel, d-don't! It's contagious"_

"_He might die" _

_And then that thought made him more afraid than he ever had been in his life before that. A flash of memory came irrelevantly to him. Tylendel had been complaining about a sore throat and chills, though the Healers couldn't find anything to justify the symptoms. He dismissed the thought quickly. His world had narrowed to Healing the boy in front of him. It was imperative that he do so, nevermind that his Gift was paltry good for numbing or healing bruises. He had to heal the boy—Stefen._ _He felt his own throat begin to ache in sympathy as he stretched his Gift farther beyond its limits than he had ever attempted before…the ache was building… what was remembered and real culminated into a single sharp burst-_

PAIN!

He didn't realize that he'd jumped to his feet until he found himself staring at Stefen from halfway across the room. He blinked and in that instant between one breath and the next, knew—

_Kilchas! That pain was Herald-Mage Kilchas, and he was dying. Or being killed. Suddenly. Violently._(3)

And that was when Stefen decided he'd experienced enough Heraldically induced madness for a lifetime, let alone that day. He turned and haltingly, stumblingly fled the building, leaving a now completely unconscious Vanyel and whatever revelation he'd just had for the comfort of simple, familiar Bardic.

* * *

Notes:

(1) Fact brought to you from Magic's Price. Shav is a real bitch, eh? Useless too.

(2) Stolen from Take a Thief, and Exile's Honor, courtesy of Queen Selenay, I believe. They certainly didn't have anything remotely like this in Van's time.

(3) Lines taken directly from Magic's Price. They just fit, okay?

Also, anything that doesn't seem familiar to you (the city being built in circles, the mysterious "ague") is me spouting nonsense for my own amusement. I've no idea what the "ague" really is, besides entailing some sort of fever, and I don't particularly care. It sounded olden and potentially deadly, so I went with it.


	7. Chapter Seven

A/N: Still waffling about the **change to M**. When I get there, I get there, I suppose. Also fixed a couple of mistakes in the previous chapter (i.e. BredaLynnell) Not that it matters.

* * *

He finally stumbled up to his room, a mess of nerves and confusion. He looked at his cold bed despairingly. In that state it only served as a cruel reminder of his obsession with Vanyel, that obsession being the reason he had stopped sleeping around and the reason his bed was as he saw it, virtuously empty, cold and uninviting. It was the height of irony.

Feeling crushed and somewhat cheated, he began to sniffle and then to tear and finally to bawl out his misery until his face was a hideous mess of snot and tears. Only then when he thought he looked and felt sufficiently pathetic and worn out did he allow himself to crawl into Medren's bed like they did when they were little.

Medren grumbled and stole the blankets away while in sleepy retaliation, Stefen liberally wiped his face all across the one pillow.

It had to wait until morning when Medren would be properly awake and sentient, but when he was the first words out of his mouth were,

"Stef..? Wha's wrong?" His voice was still somewhat slurred by sleep. Mostly sentient, then. "Who was it?"

Medren was perfectly capable of anticipating the situation regardless, and it called for the asking of a name. Nothing ever got to Stefen this badly but one of trysts gone to hell and he knew it. This wasn't an entirely uncommon experience for the two, after all, though it _had_ been a very long time since Stefen had crawled in beside him without any prompts and a minimum of embarrassment.

"c'mon, Stef—"

"Your uncle."

"Gods, it would have to be them… don't tell me you—oh, I don't know—"

"_I_ didn't do anything! Did you know I spent the whole day with Tylendel? He-" Stefen had to stifle a crazed laugh that was also a sob "he tol' me s-such 'orrible things… Vanyel- d'you know that 'e drinks? And 'e- and he-? They're mad… 'orrible…_they're not like they're s'pposed t' be_!" His words were punctuated by hiccupping sobs and he was noticeably holding back the urge to wail. Medren was shocked, to say the least. It had never been this bad before, with _anyone*. _Stefen was surely going to make himself sick with the way he was carrying on and his words were already unintelligible between his thickening accent, stuttering and plaintive tone.

"Ah, Stef…" he breathed, smothering the critically upset young man in a warm embrace. "Calm down... come on…" Stefen continued heedless.

"'e's a c-complete drunk. I found 'im on the outskirts of 'aven, out cold. 'e tol' me these st-stories" His chest heaved and he breathed in short gasps as if in pain until he gave up the fight, crying messily into Medren's chest, mourning something that never had been. And Medren sighed and stroked his hair and they both were lost to sleep.

* * *

It was the year 768 of Elspeth the Peacemaker's reign*. They were nine and ten, and Stefen and Medren had never been closer or more inseparable friends. But not that day. Medren had kitchen duty, a not altogether unpleasant task in Stefen's opinion, and he himself had already finished helping the maids launder clothes. Kitchen chores were much better in comparison, he thought as he ran out toward the fields beyond the salle; one was always free to take the scrapings of whatever was cleaned as one wished, though that was hardly necessary between all the meals—three of them!—that the Collegium provided everyone within its walls each day.

Although he was usually with Medren, he had gotten over enough of his shyness to look for other playmates and he found them a few boys dressed in blue, playing with a leather ball. He did not know much about blues except that they were not the trainees of Bards, Heralds or Healers. He either did not know or care that they were highborn, all of them, and it never did occur to him that they would like for him to join their game. He ran over to them happily and unabashedly asked to join, They were older than him by at least a year or two in the case of the youngest among them. That alone would have been reason enough for them to send him away, but even at that age the idea of perceived politeness had been strongly impressed on them. Instead they waited for the opportune moment.

This was not the first time Stefen had played with them but it would hopefully be the last. Their reputations did not appreciate a low born presence. Their moment came not a half-candlemark later, when with a prodigious kick, the eldest of them sent the ball sailing over the palace's garden wall. Enlisting Stefen to go with him, one of the smaller boys set off to find it.

"I really like you, you know. I'm glad we're friends!"

"Um. Yeah." The boy just wanted to do as his parents told him, to make friends with the right sort. He wasn't heartless, and he wasn't sure he had it in him to peel the smile off the beaming face in front of him. He dragged his feet a little, and tuned out the happily chattering boy. His friends would be angry if he didn't do something about the Bardic trainee, and they were the friends he _had to_ make sure he kept. That was most important, he knew that. He didn't really care about Stefen. They barely knew each other, really. He just didn't want to be mean. The other boy might even _cry_. That would be bad, and not because it would make him sad too, but because his friends would think that was stupid and weak. _He_ never cried, no, not at all.

Then he saw one of the older boys around a hedge. The boy smiled spitefully, and gave an encouraging nod, as if saying _get on with it_. That didn't bode well.

Little Stefen had found the ball, it seemed. But the other boy, Bryan* was his name, didn't care much about that anymore. He was frozen with helpless indecision. How was he to break it to Stefen that they couldn't be friends?

He didn't notice how Stefen's oblivious words had trailed off. He was barely aware of his presence except as an obstacle that he didn't want to have to face.

Stefen stood in front of him now, holding the ball behind his back and smiling shyly. He was starting to like Bryan better than the others. He didn't talk much, but he was sweet and shy and there was something in his features Stefen knew he liked.

Though Stefen as a younger child had been long accustomed to being neglected or manhandled, under the close care of every maid, cook, and lady in the Collegiums he quickly learned to covet and to imitate their brand of warmth.

His close friendship with Medren was a prime example of how he freely gave his affection. They could have been said to be unusually close for boys their age, but that didn't matter then to either of them; no one could resist Stefen's innocently loving nature, and because of that, he learned to freely show affection towards others in any way that occurred to him. That was why, when with no other logic other than having decided in the space between one second and the next that he liked Bryan, he leaned forward and stole a kiss from him.

Bryan almost immediately stumbled back, a film of cold greasy shock enveloping his countenance. Boys didn't do that. What was Stefen playing at? It was wrong, and strange. It _was_. And that one boy, and probably others, was watching. But it wasn't his fault. It was Stefen. _He_ hadn't done anything.

Then two boys, waiting for their cue to finally drive the nuisance away, stepped in.

Stefen looked confused between the three blanked faces, his grin drying up and dying in a corner of his lips. Something had changed, but as a child being ignorant to the social cues and that rules the highborn class lived by, he wasn't sure what it was, or how to fix it. But he wanted to try. He settled into quick anxiety.

"Wh-wha's wrong?"

"You are, stupid bugger."

"Shay-och-urn, is what they call them in an outland tongue. My cousin told me, and he's fifteen this Sovvan night. They're... not _right_."

There was more that they said, more that they accused and yelled and pointed, but that didn't matter when they started hurting him in earnest. Though Stefen could fight, and knew more about real fighting than anything a noble could ever learn, there were many of them, all bigger than him. He had barely a hope to defend himself.

They left him bruised and bleeding from at least a dozen cuts after what seemed like days. He mustered his stubborn instinct of survival to support himself as he dragged his battered carcass to his tiny room in Bardic. He tried not to think about the way Bryan's cheeks had wetly reflected the afternoon light when he too began to exact his share of senseless revenge.

Medren found him as he was painfully contemplating the Collegiums' stairs and promptly dragged him to a Healer trainee friend of his. She did little more than apply inexperienced bandages and sour smelling salve. Medren was the real Healer who restored Stefen's broken faith and trust.

His experience had taught him for the first time that the Collegiums were not an untouched Eden. It robbed him of the belief that he would ever truly fit in amongst courtiers, no matter how hard he worked at becoming a Master-a realization that he would never truly recover from. It reminded him to never forget where he came from, as it seemed no one else was about to.

And finally, that day, because of the influence of Medren, he learned to put his damaged faith not into the glittering courtiers, but into the forever honorable heralds instead. They would come rescue him if it ever happened again, or at least make sure whoever did it ended a smear on the face of Valgarth, Medren promised, half solemnly and half gleefully. He was, after all, the nephew of the two most powerful men in Valdemar, in all the _world_ even, who were lovers and lifebonded and _shaych_. And no one ever dared tell _them_ it was wrong.

That day, he learned to idolize Heralds Vanyel and Tylendel.

* * *

They were awoken a second time later that morning, or rather day, as it was already close to noon, by an insistent knocking at the door. But that wasn't what got Stefen to leap to his feet and Medren to be unceremoniously pushed to the floor in front of him; no, it was that their visitor, after tiring of knocking, thought to try the door and found it conveniently unlocked. More than that, the _visitor_ was Tylendel who of course had no qualms about strolling right in and comfortably seating himself on Stefen's empty bed.

"Wh-wh-wha ye—what do you think yer doing here?" He cried furiously, his mussed hair, swollen eyes and crudely broken speech strangely not detracting from the fierce grace with which he railed at the man. Not to mention the fact that he was only clad in thin sleeping trews, which only served to make the entire episode of his ranting that much sweeter to watch for the calmly waiting herald.

"Sleep there often? People might get the wrong idea" He said with a grin that was brother to a leer. His tone, of course, suggested that perhaps he thought the wrong idea was exactly the truth, even though anyone who knew both boys could never imagine such a thing.

Tylendel's desire to see how indignantly Stefen might protest was not as hidden as he apparently thought it was, for the young Bard schooled his face into a most blank expression when he answered to avoid humoring him.

"I've always been shaych, and everyone knows it. And I don't think Medren's girls would care much even if _they _had barged in and seen us instead."

"Is that so?" asked Tylendel. He looked highly amused, but by what Stefen couldn't guess. "Well, anyway, I might as well tell you why I'm here. No doubt Savil is right behind me—"

"Quick as usual, I see"

Tylendel cleared his throat awkwardly at her half-expected interruption.

"Good morning, Savil"

"Good after_noon_, Tylendel. Medren, Stefen."

Medren groaned ambiguously and crawled back into bed. _"I had nothing to do with it_" might've been his response. It could also have been _"It wasn't me_". Savil's righteous presence usually elicited sentiments along those lines out of anyone under the age of fifty.

"Stefen, you will come with me to the Work Room. I will wait in the hall for you." She gave Tylendel a knife sharp look and herded him out in front of her.

They stood in awkward silence as they waited, she unwilling to ask any questions outside of the privacy of her work room, and he unwilling to offer any placating explanation. After less than a minute of listening to the muffled sounds of Stefen stumbling about in his room, Tylendel informed his former mentor that he would be waiting for them there and walked swiftly away, leaving her oppressively suspicious atmosphere behind.

Vanyel was stretched out on one of the uncomfortable stone benches when he arrived.

"Spent the night here?" he asked, though he was already almost positive that that wasn't the case. Vanyel looked at him, knowing he knew.

"No."

"I've been talking to Stefen"

"Funny. So have I, I think."

Tylendel winced. _Right._

"I… let him find you."

"I think he could've found me if he wanted to anyway …He was born there, you know. No family. No name."

"Ah, what did you talk about?"

"We didn't."

Tylendel was silent.

"I think I knew him. Met him once before, in the slums" said Vanyel.

"That makes sense," said Tylendel slowly.

Vanyel didn't look at him, thinking about that. _What made sense? That I think I remember him? How?_

He got the feeling that they were thinking on different levels again, and besides the fact that whatever Tylendel was mulling over probably had to do with touching the mind of the Bard in the first place, it bothered him more because it made him think about their rift in communication. About their difficulty in understanding each other which only got worse as they got older.

Vanyel had always firmly believed that the root of their colossally bad misunderstandings stemmed from the interference of the Circle in their lives, their magic, and the depth and solidity of their bond.

It would be a while before he realized how he was wrong about that.

* * *

"What has he done to you?" It was probably meant as a rhetorical question, but in his confusion Stefen answered as if it wasn't.

"I- I don't really know"

Savil, bluntly as usual, cut in "Do you mind if we speak mind-to-mind? It would be more—private"

Tylendel avoided her piercing gaze from his sprawled position across the room behind them.

_:Alright, lad, I'm going to take a look.:_

Stefen flinched at the foreign feel of her "voice".

"I hate that" he complained. "It's, it's... in my own mental narrative, hearing another voice—it's like someone is thinking that narrative _for_ me. It's disrupting, I can't consciously respond to you and I _don't like it_."

"You don't have to. That is, you don't have to respond." Explained Vanyel patiently. "As long as you think clearly enough we can sense the things in the forefront of your mind. That's why there are two Mindspeech type Gifts, thought-sensing and thought-projecting." The speech, likely meant to soothe Stefen's concerns, frightened him nevertheless.

"You can sense everything I'm thinking right now?" He sounded more than slightly alarmed.

"Of course not! We won't sense anything other than what you're probably thinking directly at us. There's no reason to look at you any more deeply and we won't see anything you don't want us to as long as you're not thinking about it. Very loudly."

That was clearly the wrong thing to say, as Stefen was evidently not able to grasp the concept, and their view of his immediate thoughts was flooded by an incredibly detailed list of all the things that occurred to him that he would never want them to see. The most embarrassing and prevalent of which were his many, _many_ fantasies of Vanyel, and what he occasionally (and he meant occasionally, he had enough lovers to keep him busy, and wouldn't it be awful if they knew that too? His vast array of past bed-partners flashed through his thoughts quickly—usually he'd be quite smug thinking of his, for lack of a polite term, conquests, but not in _this_ case. And Savil here was old enough to make it even _more_ awkward. Seriously, she was like, what? A hundred and twenty now?) what he occasionally _did_ while thinking of said Vanyel-fantasies; to be blunt, and he always was, at least in thought, _frigging_—and then that was sending him into a whole other ream of inappropriate thoughts for the time and place, and—

Savil sighed explosively, hiding her face with one hand. Vanyel promptly turned the color of a beetroot and refused to look anyone in the eye. Tylendel, behind the two herald's backs facing Stefen, _Tylendel_, who should not have been privy to this in a thousand million years, smirked at him, and had the audacity to wink when he saw that Stefen had noticed. Stefen felt exposed enough not to care about disguising his outrage. The man's message seemed clear enough to him, anyway. _Tylendel_ didn't need fantasies. Vanyel was _his_.

"Not fair! That's _not fair!_" He hissed, doing a passable imitation of a furiously spitting cat. Savil startled out of composing herself at his outburst.

"What's not fair?"

Stefen snapped his mouth shut, blushing, and merely pointed at the other man. _He didn't need to rub it in!_

"Tylendel" said Savil in exasperation. "Put up your mind-magic shields this instant, young man!" She was pleased to note that old habits died hard with her former Trainee, and her Teacher's Voice worked wonders as it always did. Tylendel hastened to follow her barked instructions most efficiently.

Vanyel fell back into his own thoughts as Savil began her examination of Stefen's channels of energy. His anxiety from earlier that day—when he had woken up sober in the harsh light of near dawn with no memory of how he had been laid out so thoroughly—returned. He felt an echo of his own feelings from Yfandes' direction, but assumed she had vastly different concerns than him today. She certainly wouldn't be worrying about what could have happened while he was busy playing the shit faced drunk again. She also probably wouldn't be worrying about what could have happened to make him keel over like a youngling with his first strong mug of ale. Disparaging himself wasn't getting him anywhere, however, and he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was forgetting something important. Something vital.

Then the Death Bell tolled.

"It was Kilchas!" he swore. "Last night, it was Kilchas—he died! And… and I felt it! Dear gods, I Felt it! Another Herald-Mage… dead."

His words trailed off as he registered the horrified faces of his friends and realized he had shouted his revelation aloud.

"Vanyel, what are you-How did you-?" She cut herself off abruptly as Kellan confirmed that it was indeed Herald-Mage Kilchas who had passed in the night.

"How in the name of Valdemar could you have known such a thing?"

* * *

Something about the death didn't feel right, and the fact that Kilchas had been one of the last few surviving Herald-Mages exacerbated their worry. They decided to postpone Savil's examination and headed outside. Stefen tagged along behind them, though clearly uncomfortable with the grim turn of events. Vanyel knew his aunt wasn't giving up on the boy yet, and so he gamely tried to keep up conversation.

"Why don't you tell us what you can, Stef" he said kindly.

"Uh, well, I- It kind of, felt like a Gift."

Vanyel surveyed the boy's Gifts once again, just in case, but it only confirmed what he already thought. They were the same as always, his special shade of Healing talent bound up in his other three remarkably powerful Bardic Gifts. Stefen touched his forehead, as if feeling for a gaping wound to match the open feeling he had gotten the other day. He did his best to explain it to them, although he had the feeling that none of it sounded very coherent.

"It's not like he put something _in_. Something's opened that I _had_."

Savil snorted, less than impressed by his stumbling explanation. Tylendel rolled his eyes, unnoticed. If they weren't going to ask him about it directly, then he wouldn't bother offering anything.

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Later, Aunt"

"The enemy we can see instead of the enemy we can only guess at, is it?"

Tylendel ignored his cursory feeling of indignation at being labeled the villain, and instead contemplated the "enemy they could see". That would refer to cause of Kilchas' death. But he had the suspicion that there was something very big they didn't yet see in this. And if he was an enemy, then he was there to be seen, if they would only open their eyes and stop pretending blindness.

He watched silently as they examined the scene of Kilchas' death. The elderly herald had fallen to his death from his observatory. After some bantering guesses as to any other meaning or cause of the death, Savil and Vanyel decided it was merely an unhappy coincidence. They had no answer to the rapidity of his demise, or the silence of his Companion in her final moments, away from her fellows. That required further thought, and as the closest human to the Companions, it seemed there was no one better to go asking around.

Resolved to look into the matter at his leisure, Tylendel turned his attention outwards once again.

Stefen continued to trail behind them uncertainly. He hadn't been dismissed yet, but he had no desire to cross Savil by fleeing too soon.

He really was a sweet, obedient boy. It made Tylendel want to mess with him.

He felt his magic rise up, unbidden, at the thought of once again unleashing his power within the Bard. It was more instinct than plan that drove him. It was his tendency to actually follow his wayward instincts that made him the most dangerous Herald alive. To others he seemed unpredictable, ungrounded. Perhaps they were right, but that day, that moment, he felt full and dangerous and alive and he didn't care. He was a wild node of power, he had the energy of life seeping from his pores, flowing through him and he pulled it in close and reveled in the warmth. The shimmering energy distorted the air like waves of heat.

He did not notice Stefen staring, entranced at him, his lips parted slightly and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck on end, affected by the decidedly electric feel of Tylendel's magic. He did not notice Vanyel, looking at him apprehensively, because although the display of his power in the warm afternoon light was hypnotically beatific, it looked like the way lesser mages would gather power.

Stefen had taken a step towards the blond herald and had reached out a hand to him, only to be smacked away by Vanyel. That didn't break the spell of Tylendel's focus, however, and Stefen continued watching after shooting Van his most reproachful look. _Is he blind to this? __Tylendel is beautiful..._

"Lendel, what are you doing?"

"Stretching," he murmured "haven't you ever...?" He beckoned him closer. Vanyel became very still, looking somewhat lost. "Come _here_, Van-ashke" he insisted and taking him by the hand, enveloped him in an embrace of light and heat.

"Oh..." he half-moaned and then became silent, simply taking pleasure from the sensations that Tylendel created for him.

Savil wandered off, as uninterested and uncomprehending of their affection as a stone.

Stefen watched, sick with jealousy. Why couldn't he have that? A sword thrust of longing rent his heart.

The couple, as flawed and twisted as they were in private, was there the picture of lovely, aesthetic perfection. They were each reflections of the other, dark and light, that together made a seamless, balanced whole. They fit perfectly together in their close embrace, sealed in an electric cloud of their strength, beauty, magic. And in that moment, Stefen thought he knew what the match of a lifebond meant. And he thought he hated it.

He couldn't look away, couldn't tear his eyes from the exquisitely wonderful torment long enough to do anything. His thoughts whirled. He would never be part of what they had. He would never know something so great, no matter how he tried to think otherwise. He didn't know anymore why he tried to be their friend, how he could have dared try to approach them, how he could, even in jest, entertain the thought of rivaling one for the affection of the other. The thickness of his resentment and self-hatred was tangible enough that he could choke. He wanted to end, to cease, to just_ die_. There was no place for him here.

Tylendel breathed something to his lover. Stefen could not hear it, but he had said, _"Let me show you._"

As rejection was busy stamping its mark firmly onto Stefen's heart and features, the herald looked up, and stretched out a hand in obvious invitation. Stefen held his breath. Then shy silver eyes looked at him dazedly, and smiled bigger than Vanyel typically allowed himself to. He could have cried from the sheer happiness and surprise and lack of sense it all made. Maybe he did.

The next he could understand he was standing between them, bolstered by the strength and affection he felt from both sides. He belonged.

...

* Notes:

1. From Magic's Price "Drugs... Stef's death on anybody he catches playing with them." My reasoning behind what someone called an overreaction by Stefen at the beginning of this chapter.

2. "The year 768..." is an approximate value. I made up my own alternate time line based on the time lines in the beginning of some of ML's books. Tweaked ages, births, etc. You may ignore this.

3. Bryan. An OC, yes. Why? Because I can. And because I always wanted to know or imagine more about Stefen (who is my favorite of the three).


	8. Chapter Eight

**WHOA, ADULT CONTENT NOTICE. WHAAAT? **A sort of almost **graphic description** of **sex**... It's pretty lame, though. I'd like to believe that I'm too much of an academic to write real smut. XD

_To those lovely anonymous reviewers: No, I don't really hate any of them, and if reading this made you feel sad, then _good_, because it's supposed to. I only write to please myself with what I've created, and I'm sorry if it seems to drag—it's something that's probably also influenced in part by how rarely I update. One thing your reviews _did _make me consider was _**possibly changing the genre from "drama" to "angst"**_ however, as I admit that it is getting a little… over the top. The majority of this story contains people being miserable, although I promise that this does have a happy ending, and it will get better in a few chapters. At least you think my language is good, haha! Seriously, this is just practice to me, and only barely plot-driven, sorry to disappoint!_

…

Shy silver eyes looked at him dazedly, and they had a smile in them bigger than Vanyel would ever allow himself to show. Stefen could have cried from the sheer happiness and surprise and lack of sense it all made. He stood between them, bolstered by the strength and affection he felt from both sides.

He belonged.

He couldn't have explained why it felt so good, so immeasurably good that it barely had anything to do with just standing being embraced by the two most entrancing men he'd ever met in his life, except that it had everything to do with them, because—because—

The knowledge escaped him, words and reasoning skittering out of his grasp… but who could even care when everything in the world felt brilliant and wonderful? He probably would have loved to know what the hell Tylendel was doing to make it so that he could almost feel them both in ways where they weren't even touching, but really, all he cared about was that if it had to end, his only plans included going to go back to his room and having the best wank of his life to this moment.

Later, when the shadows had considerably lengthened and both heralds allowed their magic to dissipate safely back to the surrounding environment, Vanyel said, "That was nice, Tylendel, but I've no idea what it was. What are you trying to prove?"

Tylendel scowled in answer.

"You'll see. You _will_."

Vanyel sighed, not in the mood to argue or find out exactly what had possessed his bonded to behave and act so strangely.

"Stefen...?" he asked, looking concerned at the doll-like lack of reaction visible in him. After a largely uncomfortable amount of time had passed came his answer.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm fine" His eyes were glazed and he looked thoroughly out of his head. Vanyel sent an accusing look at his lover. The man rolled his eyes in response. _He _thought Stefen's condition obvious enough. Still, he did love to rattle the boy.

"Stefen!" he barked in a remarkably accurate imitation of Breda. "Don't you have any responsibilities to tend to around here? Or are _Masters_ always free to laze about without a concern for their keep?"

Stefen snapped out of his sleepy state at that. Tylendel did sound very like some of the professors in the Collegiums (and perhaps most like Savil). The young bard looked about a bit wildly, trying to discern how late it was, wondering when was the next time he was supposed to entertain an audience for the King—before realizing that he had been given leave for the week as a result of his bitter (though contrived) complaints to the Healers who were studying his Talent. Tylendel laughed uproariously at his expense.

"Come on, lad, we both know you haven't a lick of work to do, calm yourself"

Even Vanyel unfurled the white flag of his smile at their antics. Tylendel's teasing was only that—simple teasing—a somewhat crude way showing his affection and genuine feeling of camaraderie for the boy ...a fact that made the mystery of his interference in the young Bard's mind all the greater. What the hell had he actually done anyway? If his like of the boy was as real as it seemed, then it should follow that there was no chance of Tylendel hurting him, in _any_ situation. If his little experiments in the mind weren't harmful, then really, _what were they_? Only the gods knew, but either way this was still Lendel, _his_ Lendel, and in that one sun drenched moment he thought that things could turn out all right.

…

"I should think that you would hate them by now" said Medren.

Stefen looked up at that, with the strangest expression on his face.

"Why would you think that? How could I—?"

He was cut off by the most bitterly sarcastic speech he'd yet heard from Medren. "Yes, how _could_ you possibly hate the _gods_ that are Herald Ashkevron and" his pause was nearly imperceptible, "Frelennye? Well, if _I_ were in your position I don't think I would find it that difficult. They're being complete asses, Stefen. You should… I mean, by now, can't you just avoid them for a while? This isn't _healthy_. I can't keep watching while my closest friends and family arrange themselves into one spectacular pyre of failure."

Stefen's face remained frozen in petulance at being cut off. He probably hadn't heard a word uttered. Not for the first time, Medren entertained the thought of Stefen being lifebonded to Vanyel. If it weren't for the fact that his Uncle Lendel, well, _existed_ then maybe that theory would have made a modicum of sense. Except that lately... Tylendel, rather than just being a problem in Stefen's doomed (and largely imaginary) love affair with Vanyel, Tylendel _was_ the problem. As in, he was developing his _own _starring role in Stefen's bureau of doomed love affairs.

"Stefen. I tell you this because I'm your friend: _there is something _wrong_ with you_."

"Never mind. But I honestly think that I couldn't _ever_..." he responded, without any regard to sequence or logic of thought.

"Dear gods"

Medren left soon after, not to return until late the next day. He might've tried to tell him about it, but Stefen was much too distracted to have even noticed after a time. He fell into sleep that was as fitful as his waking thought process that day.

…

He wished it was as simple as asking Tylendel straightforwardly what he had done to the Bard that had accelerated his empathic and sympathetic based Gifts, but the more necessary the question became, the less he felt capable of asking it. Now that the pressing _need_ for them to communicate had arisen, he was finally hit with the realization that they no longer knew so much as how to have a normal conversation.

He lay in bed that night too lazy and too disgusted with himself to contemplate the bar or even the bottles of liquor he hoarded on the highest tier of the shelves above his desk. He rested on his side, staring the bottles in the face, dramatizing his shame.

Tylendel came in after a while and lay down beside him. They reached out with a touch of power to damp the fire from the candles at the same time and startled at the touch of the other's magic. Vanyel predictably froze, uncertain of what an appropriate reaction was anymore. He wasn't turned to see the tentative smile that clung to Tylendel's face. He felt the lightest of touches on his shoulder but in overthinking had waited so long to respond that by the time he thought he might make a move Tylendel had turned to face the opposite wall, only thinly hiding his disappointment.

The disappointment weighed on him like a thousand heavy stones. How difficult it seemed to reach him through a barrier constructed only of his own thin perception! The moment fled.

_How many moments had they already lost in that same cowardly, static way?_

Misery pricked at him, strengthening a resolve he hadn't known he still possessed. Impulse taking him, he turned violently to face the middle of the bed and grabbed at Tylendel's shoulder, flipping him to his back. They stared wide-eyed into each other's close, sleep pinched faces for a long minute, Vanyel just as stricken by his sudden madness as Tylendel. His spike of impatience and dissatisfaction slowly drained out and left him with paralysis, and he knew he looked completely moronic, not even having anything to say after his dramatic gesture, and only one word could come to mind, not a proper word either, but maybe a plea—

"'_Lendel_" he whispered brokenly, not sure of his ability to say anything more and yet knowing—or hoping that it would be all he needed.

And just then, that was exactly enough. Carefully Tylendel rearranged them, Vanyel scarcely able to tuck the cap of his head under Tylendel's chin.

They slept and woke without change.

"What is it you've done, 'Lendel?" asked Vanyel softly for once, his open face betraying his frail confidence in receiving an answer. It was his tone that might as well have been asking, "Why is it that we cannot talk, anymore?" "Why is it that we no longer love?"

It was not the voiced question but the unspoken ones that made Tylendel turn his face into the bedding and clutch Vanyel to his chest, as if hiding his tears from them both that way would make them less real.

"I haven't done anything wrong" he whispered in reply "I haven't gone mad—no perhaps I am, but Vanyel I swear to you that what I've done isn't wrong, or, or hurtful."

"Yes," said Vanyel. He didn't want to continue, didn't want to say that Savil and Jaysen and heralds with grudges would not simply take his word. He didn't want to say it, but he did, whispering it back, wishing that the softly spoken words would not fall into the air heavily enough to splinter the fragile connection they'd rebuilt in each other's arms.

"They won't believe me," tested Tylendel, his voice deceptively even. "You don't believe me."

"I do!" he cried out anxiously, flooding the room with his words, volume chasing out inertia. "I- I _do_. But 'Lendel…" He felt tears build up behind his eyes, fill his throat, make his lips tremble. Had he ruined it? He couldn't let his outburst ruin what seemed like a last desperate bid to be—normal? Happy? Simply _heard_? Things had been so well a moment ago. Whatever the case was—he couldn't let it end! They had been getting somewhere; they had finally been doing it _together_.

He wanted to say more, but couldn't choke out the words. He was beginning to hyperventilate—it was pathetic, the loss of control he was experiencing lately. Still the realization didn't make him stop; he was only getting worse, his frame shaking madly with an outpouring of stress—

"_Shh,_ Van-ashke, it's _alright_," He reached out and soothed as best he could, recalling countless jumbled memories of their pain and comfort. It seemed their thoughts both were almost always on the past, reflecting, remembering, stagnating. They didn't have what they used to, and to be perfectly frank, they barely had anything going for them at present at all. It was high time they learned to move, to do something about it, and at least through this first conversation make a change.

Then again, they always were so very shaky with words.

He began with a massage, soothing with his hands and lips where words would no longer do. He was only met with a questioning stare when he reached to Fetch massaging oil, and he answered with a grin that declared exactly what he planned to do.

Savil would no doubt come along in search of them eventually, but looking at his lover's smirk Vanyel couldn't help but think he'd be lucky to leave their quarters by midday, if then.

Though Van's interest had inevitably been stirred at the thought and feel of the oil against his skin, the massage went on being ostensibly innocent for a long time after he was ready for more. Was he waiting for something? Did 'Lendel want him to…_beg_? It really had been a while since they'd been up to this, and he couldn't remember the last time sex had been this sort of sensual barrage rather than a release of mutual frustration. It seemed a bit much to jump right back into something that left him so…vulnerable, especially with their trust issues, but maybe that was the point? He decided not to let it bother him because, as stupid as he thought it was to admit, it felt like it was his first time all over again, and he was eager to please.

"'Lendel…" his voice was unsteady. He was nervous, but aching to feel release. It was then that he felt the feather-light touch of Tylendel's consciousness against his. Their lifebond wasn't good for sharing much if their minds were closed off, and while closing one's thoughts to the exclusion of a partner was not necessarily a_ taboo_ in a bonded relationship, to them it had somehow become the norm rather than the exception. Then again a long separation only made the release of their barriers feel that much more glorious.

The thoughts, feelings and sensation that slid through Tylendel's consciousness into his were like the first drops of rain in a cracked desert. So _this_ was what Tylendel had been waiting for him to see. He begged aloud for his touch anyway, for the fun of it, knowing perfectly well that 'Lendel could read his desire in his body and mind. There was little room left for shame in a coupling now full of each other.

…

_Tylendel kissed his way up a smoothly muscled thigh, the flashes of his fierce eyes as he glanced up almost as gratifying as the sensations he caused._

_Where was Vanyel? No, he _was _Vanyel_… _He was_ _Tylendel's lover and lifebonded._

_Now he cried out and arched his back, furiously rutting his way to completion. Tylendel laid on top of him, thrusting his hot sex between Stefen's—no, Vanyel's thighs, mimicking the motion of the actual act._

_Gods above and below, it was _good_, better than they'd had in such a long time…_

_He hoped they would get up to more later, as he knew he was close, but it really had been ages since his last and he never wanted it to end…When was the last time he'd bedded a boy, anyhow? Had it been Bryan? Or that other courtier, brother to Melinda…? But why would he have bothered with them? All he wanted was Tylendel's touch against him forever and ever and—_

_Oh… Tylendel bent his golden head to suck love-bites across his collarbone, and his eyes were the color of silver coins… _

Colors and impressions warped as the fevered dream—_and yes, that couldn't be anything but a dream, could it?_—began to stutter into reality once more…

_He could have sworn he heard his whispered name,_

_So _close_… Stefen_…

He awoke, whimpering and desperate; hand already around his straining cock. He frigged himself viciously, holding on to the scattered and confused remnants of the dream, wringing an orgasm from his body before he was even fully awake. He had the sick feeling that he wouldn't have known his own name in those last brutal moments between sleep and wakefulness, and had no idea yet of the prophetic nature the dream held.*

Later, Stefen sat listlessly on the edge of his unmade bed. The thought of trudging down to the kitchens to get breakfast had come and gone, and he remained in place.

Savil came knocking at his room that day, after noon, and his place had varied only slightly. He lay on Medren's empty bed, clutching his pillow in a half-asleep state. He only nodded tiredly and followed when she requested that he accompany her to a meeting with a Mind Healer and some others of high rank.

…

"Yes, that is Tylendel's. I'd recognize his work, his touch, anywhere. There's no doubt about it…" Savil sounded plenty wearied and saddened by the discovery, but there was a definite undertone that lacked any touch of shock.

This discovery had been something she had anticipated, and she was relieved to have found it. Tylendel had been her student, yes, and she was as close to him as anyone could have been—which did not say much, as Tylendel was close to no one, or no one human, at any rate—but he was also considered dangerous by everyone, bar Vanyel. There were whispers about him, of course there would be, with a past and a power like his. Savil did not listen much to that, as she knew Tylendel when he was still young and an upstanding Trainee, but Savil was a pragmatist. Her quasi-parental love for him did not cloud the knowledge that Tylendel was and had always been unstable, and capable of causing others damage. That the damage did not come this time in the form of a seizure induced mage storm or some other giant calamity was strange, but barely questioned. What could Tylendel's essence all through the boy's mind be? Not to mention the link leading back to Tylendel's mind. What could it be but some potentially harmful and controlling experimental magic?

Stefen sat looking up at them and where he had been nervous and cowed by the presence of so many high-ranking heralds before, a look of mulishness began to creep into his expression.

"But what _is_ it? I won't be talked over any longer!"

The one herald he didn't recognize looked at him with insincere pity oozing from his great ugly pores. "As you would understand it, I suppose it could be called mind-control,"

Savil leaped to correct the broad generalization. "That's only a poorly worded guess," She pointed out hastily. "It could be a number of things… though I suppose none are good. We've never seen a bond like this,"

"The subject retains his presence of mind, and we've no evidence of an impairment of his own will"

And then the terms began getting technical and they all started arguing heatedly. Stefen stood outside of their debate, rationality slick oil to the water of his thoughts.

Tylendel was going to be indicted once again, with a great possibility of losing, if not his life, then everything that made it worth having.

…

After actually being examined, it seemed Stefen was of no further use and he was summarily dismissed. It didn't occur to him yet that whatever charges made against Tylendel would have less to do with him and the violation of his mind than it did with intracouncil politics. He still didn't know what to think.

Tylendel had taken a strange interest in him. He had been tricked into visiting his quarters, and once they were alone, Tylendel had done _something_ with his power that had many other heralds worried. Not to mention that the _something_ had been different and paining and scary the first time, especially after Vanyel, who he had eventually come to recognize as the second person he had a special awareness of, had taken note of Tylendel' s wayward actions and flew over to them in a rage.

But then… the thing yesterday that Tylendel had initiated, with the three of them standing together in a sunlit field… that had been _wonderful_, and more likely than not, he thought, also caused the strange (but almost gratifying) dreams he'd had. And that source of that great feeling, whatever foreign brand of magic Tylendel had invoked to create it, wasn't it the same as the first time, but with good feelings and not bad? He though it seemed linked to empathy somehow, but he was far from true understanding and he was beginning to feel foolish trying to rationalize things he knew nothing about, especially after he had been so lost while Savil and other magical experts discussed the problem that he had tuned them out.

He again recalled that idyllic moment in the sun. His body took more interest in it than it should have and he shifted in anticipation already, tugging crossly at his tunic. This was getting ridiculous! He was nearly twenty, for gods' sakes, not thirteen and his inappropriate reactions to completely innocuous prompts were frankly embarrassing. It had been happening for some weeks now and he was quickly tiring of the inconvenience.

As he was just thinking to thank whatever god still pitied him for keeping the corridors empty, he nearly stumbled over a pair of pages, gossiping over a load of trays.

He had walked as far as the area of heralds' quarters without thinking about it; Tylendel's presence in his thoughts was really getting to be too much. He had wanted to return to Bardic, but now he absently considered paying the heralds a visit. Surely Tylendel wouldn't outright refuse to try and help him understand whatever he had tried to do. He deserved that much concern, at least. Even if whatever it was involved some esoteric magic he could never hope to grasp, he definitely deserved _some_ explanation.

He paused in a doorway, planning his next step, eavesdropping on the pages with half an ear. One didn't advance in the Court without some sort of gossip sense, after all. What he picked up on made him turn cold, though he tried to tell himself he had no reason to feel jealous…

"…'aven't left their quarters all day!" sniggered one with a tactless elbow to ribs of the other. The tin cover of an empty dish clattered to the ground.

That message was clear enough. He no longer thought he'd try disturbing the pair today. Knowing about it was bad enough; he had no desire of seeing evidence of their physical bond, especially when it left him feeling so hollow.

"You oaf!" sneered the other, swiftly kneeling to retrieve it with perfect balance of the other dishes. "What does it matter? Jobs…"

"…always do it themselves…"

"So you're a layabout, what do I care about your idle time? I have to _work_…" sniffed the prim one. Perhaps not so prim; he sent one of the first's trays falling to the floor.

He was such a fool. He didn't know what he hated more—that he was jealous of the two heralds, or that he let it cripple him to the extent that he couldn't go to them, even with a matter that he felt was urgently necessary.

"Oi!"

They scuffled. Then, rumpled and late, they sat together and abandoned their tasks to instead snitch some of the food they carried.

The first spoke muffled by a stuffed mouth, spraying crumbs far and wide, "…heard from the cook… Frele'ne…"

"No! _Sedition_? …during the _war_…Circle said."

"Move fast, they do…the Council"

Sedition? He thought with alarm. _I thought this had all been because of me…? Is it possible that there is _more_ Tylendel has hidden? Or is this a product of politics, working to get him thrown out again?_

He walked quickly away, out of earshot and leaned back against the wall of an alcove for support, sliding down to sit on the floor. Shock was too great to handle, and he knew not how long he numbly passed there, asking the gods why it had to be him caught up in this affair.

...

*"frigging": A term I picked up reading a book about sex from England maybe a couple of centuries ago. I know it is still sometimes used today, but it had a more specific context back then that I think has been changed in modern English. Anyway, the book is pretty interesting, but also completely sick and nasty, so I wouldn't really recommend it. But at least it gave me vulgar terms that allow me to feel like I'm eliminating anachronistic elements. (Alas, I alone care about this.)


End file.
